Tag Archives: employment

Work and family, a crucial balance

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Laura Addati, ILO’s,
Maternity Protection and Work-Family Specialist

Let me tell you briefly the stories of Afia and Melba.

Afia gets up every day at 5 a.m. to fetch water from a well two miles away from her farm in Djanipe (Togo) to prepare a family meal before going off to her farming or trading activities  When she comes back home in the evening, she is too tired to play with her two children, aged four and two.

Soglo, her husband, works shorter hours and does not participate in childcare or household chores.  They have been hit hard by the lack of rainfall and are constantly struggling to make ends meet. Continue reading →

My story as a young entrepreneur in Zambia

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Mutoba Ngoma
Founder and CEO of Tapera Bio Industries Limited, he received entrepreneurship training as part of the ILO’s Youth Employment Project in Zambia.

As the sun comes up over Lusaka, a city I share with 2 million others, business is well under way and has been since 3 a.m. The trucks carrying produce from the farms around the city are the first to arrive in the early hours before I wake.

As soon as I do, I am up and out, looking for new contacts and investments to help support and grow my bio-fuel company. Such is the life of a young entrepreneur in this town. Every day is a new opportunity to meet the challenges of keeping a small business alive.

I’m 28 but first started my business in 2006 when I was 21, after being inspired by a TV documentary on renewable energy in Brazil. I put the project on hold for a while to work as an aircraft technician at Zambian Airways Limited. However, they went out of business and I came back to the bio-fuel idea. My alternatives were few, as formal, decent employment opportunities are hard to come by in my country. In fact, a vast majority of young workers are in the informal economy. Continue reading →

Impressions of Kathmandu: A determined youth

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YP_0513By Yves Perardel, ILO Statistician for the Youth employment program

There has been a return to peace in Nepal, after over a decade of civil conflict. The ILO’s Yves Perardel travelled to Kathmandu in preparation for a survey of young people and their experience of leaving school to enter the world of work. Taking his camera to the streets, he sees a city in transition, young people here, he says, have hope for growth and stability.