OUR VISION

ONE WORLD where poverty is eliminated, equality prevails, and the rights of women and girls are fulfilled.

Project description and context:

Crossroads International’s 2020-2027 Volunteer Cooperation Program (VCP) entitled Championing Gender Equality Together, funded by Global Affairs Canada (GAC), will engage Canadian women and men, Canadian stakeholders, Crossroads staff and volunteers, local partner organizations and women and men in sub-Saharan Africa to become Gender Equality Champions. Collectively these Gender Equality Champions constitute a global community of strong change agents and advocates for the advancement of gender equality both in Canada and overseas.

Ghana has a young age structure, with approximately 57% of the population under the age of 25. The unemployment rate for 2019 was 4.33%, among which 9.16% are youth. It is also indicating that on a yearly basis an estimated 100,000 youth graduate from the various tertiary institutions in the country unto the competitive job market which cannot recruit close to 10% of that population.

Entrepreneurship in Ghana has taken course and is now a key aspect in shaping the country’s economy, providing jobs and reducing poverty levels in the country. However, the main issue that is halting the entrepreneurial progress in Ghana is that most of the start-up business owners are unprepared. They lack the proper skills and attitudes required to successfully start an enterprise, run it in the market, and allow it to grow. Thus, empowering the target groups with the necessary skills, knowledge, and understanding becomes a priority. The educational sector, private sectors and NGOs have an important role to play here. They need to ensure that the youth of this nation receive relevant financial and legal education, and acquire proper practical training to start and run their own business.

The Streets Sports Incubator project is currently being implemented by Jordan Youth Innovation Forum in Jordan, supported by DUNK’s Danish partner GAME. It is a project aiming at empowering youth through sports and business. It helps the young people in harnessing their business ideas while also having a positive social impact. It provides opportunities for young people to learn, grow, and find suitable investors for their start-ups and social initiatives. A similar project in Ghana would offer Ghana Playmakers with an entrepreneurial mindset (50% are young women), as well as other young entrepreneurs from across the country, to develop and grow their for-profit and non-profit ideas into businesses and initiatives. The innovative and flexible approach would help create economic opportunities and decrease the number of physically inactive children and youth. The Incubator would also increase entrepreneurial capabilities among youth. It would provide mentorship and guidance to these young entrepreneurs, and provide seed funds to the deserving.  We have chosen sports as the main theme of our project because of its prevalence among young people all over the world and because Ghanaian society especially girls, still lags behind the world in this aspect. Sports bring the youth of the world together and help them in connecting with each other. At DUNK, we believe that using sports as a tool for social change and inclusion, and in this case, a mean to create new opportunities for young people, is an effective way to reach more young people. We believe that it is the key to overcome any social or economic challenges that they may face, either now or in the near future.

Using sports to bring social change and eliminate boundaries between people is not a new strategy. It has been used before in different places of the world. However, in this project, we are using sports for not just bringing social change but also to create successful businesses. We believe that by this project we can make sports both a lifestyle for our people and a mean for generating profit. That is the main goal of this project, to help our youth in building the business that they love.  The project intends to connect with the youth and provide them with better tools to improve their lives.

Mandate historical context:

As part of an exit plan for DUNK’s youth also known as the playmakers; (young men and women aged between 16 and 25 years old), DUNK is interested in developing a project similar to Streets Sports Incubator in Ghana. The Project Development Advisor will support the development of a youth entrepreneurship program to enroll youth exiting DUNK’s Playmakers program either in skills training or entrepreneurship with access to start-up loans from financial institutions. DUNK’s collaborators in Jordan with similar setting have successfully developed and showed proof of concept. The Project Development Advisor will be working closely with supervisors and DUNK’s collaborators (GAME Jordan and Denmark for technical advice) in the development of this project.

Main responsibilities:

• Research on youth entrepreneurship in the context of Ghana
• Develop a complete concept note and/or proposal including context and rationale, theory of change, logic model, PMF, gender analysis, calendar of activities, selection process and budget
• Research potential technical partners and government stakeholders
• Identify potential funding opportunities (local & international)
• Assist in grand writing aligned to project concept/proposal (secondary)

Qualification criteria for selection include:

• University Degree in Business administration, management or related field with a focus on small business development
• Minimum 2-3 years of experience with entrepreneurship or business development
• Experience working with youth and youth programming projects
• Experience with International Non-Governmental
• Organization (INGO) community based, youth led organizations
• Experience with project development and grand writing
• Experience in the field of child protection and gender equality

Language: 

English

Other skill set/knowledge:

• Networking
• Research, writing skills
• Oral fact-finding, presentation and communication skills
• Computer skills : Microsoft Office
• Readiness to deal with change in a challenging context
• Strong team player yet able to work independently with minimum supervision

Eligibility criteria:

• Canadian citizen or a permanent resident of Canada CURRENTLY in the country of the mandate.
• Share the commitment of preventing and addressing sexual misconduct
• In good physical and mental health (medical examination required)
• The volunteer needs to bring their own computer

Personalized support before, during and after the mandate provided by an experienced and welcoming team.

• Daily living allowance (amount varies depending on the country of assignment)
• Medical insurance and vaccinations
• Pre-assignment online training.

Crossroads International is committed to addressing gender-based violence by supporting the innovative work our partner organizations in ending violence against women and girls. JOIN THE MOVEMENT!

APPLICATION

To apply for this position, we kindly ask that you fill out Crossroads’ online application form.

Please contact our Volunteer mobilisation team  if you have any question: volunteer@cintl.org

We thank all applicants but only those selected for interviews will be contacted.