Upskilling Young Mothers for a Brighter Future

Camila is good with numbers. She has to be; she, her husband and baby son must survive on what her husband earns as a labourer in Mexico City. She needs to budget tightly. Just 18, Camila is NEET – Not in Education, Employment or Training – and one of many 16-24-year-olds stuck in a riptide of low income and low mobility, living under the poverty line in the urban fringes of Mexico City. Around 1 in 6 young Mexicans are jobless; a damaging situation. For every month of unemployment they experience, 18-20-year-olds are estimated to lose 2% of their lifetime income.

With a low baseline of poverty, Mexico City also has an ingrained gender imbalance. This means young women here were identified as most in need of help from Youth@Risk, a project which aims to empower young mothers to explore their potential and give them to confidence to pursue education and employment. "Mothers are my chosen battle," says Carmen Soledad, of Youth Build México - a partner organisation on the ground. "Here, a mother's identity is solely focused on being a mother. It's about changing their perspective so they can recognise themselves as someone besides a mother."

By giving these young women the resources they need to explore their own strengths, skills and potential, we hope to set them on the path to a fruitful working future.

Opportunity Cost

Perhaps the greatest challenge is the time needed to gain qualifications. Investing time in building a better career tomorrow is too often dismissed to support family today.

So a young mother who can get childcare help from her family is more likely to spend those precious hours pursuing low-skilled work for minimal pay. But her time could be better invested - with the right support. The Innovation Foundation found that school dropouts who work to support their families will give up 24% of their income to this cause. Graduates - able to earn better salaries - give up just 12%.

Breaking down internal barriers

A deep-seated myth sits at the core of the problem in Mexico: ‘A pre-school child suffers with a working mother.’ More than 52% of Mexicans agreed with this statement in a World Values Survey.

"What's really demoralising is when these barriers are internalised," laments Karim Bin-Humam from partner organisation SkillLab. And yet he has found a lot of the women understand they have something to offer and need to understand what that is. "These women and girls are armed with a vague sense of value. They know they have something to contribute to their community, they've just never been given the tools they need to give it shape or form. Once we get these people re-engaged, we activate an engine that was already there."

And once this engine is running, it drives these young mothers towards the next chapter. "Young mothers are eager to find out what's next," explains Carmen. "They want to join and are enthusiastic to progress. They’re also grateful because it does them a lot of good to be truly ‘seen’."

It takes role models to showcase opportunities. Karim grapples daily with the prevalent lack of role models and social norms holding young mothers back. "What is most prevalent is a complete lack of mentorship. It's hard to figure these things out, especially when you've been disengaged for a while and focused on providing for loved ones; even more so without support and guidance. Part of it is attitudes from close ones based on status. Parents and husbands may not expect a mother to be educated."

"They need to feel they are not alone," says Carmen. "That it has been done before. One young mother came in to say she was dropping out of a programme, but another convinced her to stay and she did - and began to realise "she's got this"."

Small impact, big results

There are countless stories of women reclaiming ownership of their lives once they felt truly seen. "One young mother left an abusive partner to raise her children alone, away from his bad role modelling. She now has a job in construction and is really excited about the project," recounts Carmen.

Karim wholeheartedly believes real impact can come from simply listening to people. "We can sometimes start fantasising about the impact that projects like these can have on communities. But there is nothing wrong with being realistic and measuring progress in small wins. A 'small' impact can still change someone's life."

This sort of thinking goes hand-in-hand with the Innovation Foundation's design-thinking approach. The Adecco Group's corporate foundation is a Social Innovation Lab which always puts people at the core. End-users and their unique stories are in the heart of the Innovation Foundation's mission to support sustainable livelihoods and boosting the employability of underserved populations.

Learnings from this project will inform a framework of action for the Innovation Foundation to increase employability and make better futures possible for young people in many countries. People will solve the world's problems, so it is imperative we not only invest in them as our most valuable asset, but that we empower everyone to contribute. Only then can we truly make the future work for everyone.