The Efficacy of Youth Empowerment Initiatives: Lessons Learnt from the Young Africa’s Technical Vocational Education and Training Model in Zimbabwe

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.71458/w49znh90

Keywords:

vocational training, skills education, livelihoods, positive transformation

Abstract

Technical Vocational Education and Training (TVET) has been adopted as a viable solution to socio-economic challenges facing youths in Zimbabwe. Although this type of education has been promoted for a long time, evidence to show the efficacy of this education remains debatable and scarce. This article examines the effectiveness of Young Africa‘s (YA) model of youth empowerment showing its impact on the livelihoods of university graduates. A mixed methods approach was used to gather data whereby a graduate tracer survey was used to obtain quantitative data while in-depth interviews and key informant interviews were used to collect qualitative data. The Critical Youth Empowerment Theory was used to explain the findings. Qualitative data were analysed using thematic analysis, while quantitative data were examined through Qualtrics survey tool and Excel. The article establishes the positive transformation of graduates towards community and national development at both micro and macro levels. Livelihoods were improved and in other instances; diversified, while community participation was also noted. The article gathers that the model of Young Africa has a unique positive contribution to youth empowerment through its holistic nature. The article has also noted some challenges associated with the model which include limited number of training institutions and financial implications. In line with these challenges, several recommendations are put forward as a way of proffering policy options for future youth empowerment endeavours.

Author Biographies

  • Edward Muzondo, Department of Social Work, University of Zimbabwe

    Edward Muzondo is a Licensed Social Worker, an educator and a published researcher. He holds a Bachelor of Social Work Honours Degree (2017) and a Master of Social Work Degree (2019) from the University of Zimbabwe (Harare). He worked as a lecturer at the University of Zimbabwe's Department of Social Work from 2019 to 2022. Currently he is a serving lecturer in the Department of Social Work at Eswatini Medical Christian University in Eswatini, formerly Swaziland. His career path spans the fields of clinical social work, disability rights advocacy, mental health, drug and substance use rehabilitation, SRHR and Ubuntu social work. His recent projects focus on the decolonisation of social work in Africa and the integration of African Indigenous Knowledges in developmental social work. He participated in a number of consultancy work targeting persons with disabilities, drug & substance users and commercial sex workers (SRHR).

  • Praise G. Karuma, Department of Community and Social Development, University of Zimbabwe

    Dr. Praise Gamuchirai Karuma is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of South Africa (UNISA), School of Transdisciplinary Research and Graduate Studies, College of Graduate Studies. Holding a PhD in Anthropology (Development Studies) from the University of Pretoria, his scholarship is centrally anchored in feminist and womanist traditions, foregrounding women’s agency, gendered livelihoods, and the intersections of gender, climate change, and socio-ecological resilience in Southern Africa. His doctoral dissertation, Gender and Socio-Ecological Resilience to Climate Change (2023), critically examines how gendered power structures shape women’s adaptive capacities in post-Fast Track Land Reform Zimbabwe. This sustained gender focus is further demonstrated across his research career: he served as Lead Researcher on Women’s Adaptation Experiences in Mashonaland West (2019), Lead Researcher on the Gender and Socio-Ecological Resilience to Climate Change project (2022–2023), and Fieldwork Coordinator on both the FAO Climate Change, Gender and Migration Nexus Survey (2022) and a Sexual and Gender-Based Violence (SGBV) project with CUSP and the University of Zimbabwe (2022). He has additionally served as a consultant training Zimbabwe’s Parliament on Gender, Climate Change, and Disaster Risk Reduction (2025). His published scholarship includes a peer-reviewed articles centring narratives of female farmers navigating climate change and sustainable development, and book chapters interrogating how climate and socio-economic forces reshape marriage, gender relations, and women’s lives in contemporary Zimbabwe. As a Lecturer, Dr. Karuma has taught courses on gender issues at both undergraduate and MSc levels and supervised several student dissertations on gender and rural development. He is currently leading a postdoctoral research project entitled ‘Unlocking Climate Finance for Building Resilience to Climate Change Amongst Women Smallholder Farmers: Barriers and Pathways in Selected Post-Fasttrack Farms in Zvimba District, Zimbabwe,’ which interrogates gendered barriers to climate finance access and advances feminist pathways for equitable climate resilience. Drawing on ethnographic and intersectional methodologies, his work consistently centres women’s voices and advances transformative, gender-just development frameworks in Southern Africa.

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Published

2026-08-24

Issue

Volume 5, Issue 2 (2026)

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Kwenda , S. . . . . . . . . . ., Muparamoto, N., Muzondo, E., Karuma, P., & Mavhiki, B. (2026). The Efficacy of Youth Empowerment Initiatives: Lessons Learnt from the Young Africa’s Technical Vocational Education and Training Model in Zimbabwe. Kuveza NeKuumba: The Zimbabwe Ezekiel Guti University Journal of Design, Innovative Thinking and Practice, 5(2), Pages: 1- 25. https://doi.org/10.71458/w49znh90

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