The problem of youth unemployment is widely discussed around the world nowadays. The current global average for youth unemployment rate is 15.6% and millions of young people are attaching the labour force annually but inappropriately. According to the World bank in 2022, Africa is severely affected because 12 million of its youth join the labour force every year but only 3 million of them are lucky to get formal employment. While Cameroon has a relatively low figure of 3.8% of the youth unemployment rate, 75% of young people are employed in the informal sector. The lack of knowledge on the type of jobs that are available so these youths can align their studies towards and the advice from parents and guardians on outdated forms of success deprives these youths on opportunities to select vocations that would help fill existing market gaps, thus forcing many of them into careers that they would not have chosen if properly oriented.

The Youth Career Pathway Initiative aims to bridge this gap by Empowering Tomorrow’s Leaders by offering a holistic approach to career counselling to secondary and high school students. Sessions on current jobs available and the nature of the jobs available in the market will be made. Also, sessions will be organised where important competencies of decision making, goal setting and self development will be addressed. The initiative will involve not only students, but parents too, with focus being put on the management of introducing them to resources that can guide the young people in the decision making process concerning their careers.

Some goals of the project are to reachout to about 1000 students in Buea by the end of Year 1 and 5000 more over the next 5 years. Its objective is that at least 50% of these learners transition to the next level of learning or take up relevant employment in the labour market possibly in STEM disciplines. Therefore, through achieving its objective to correct youth career mis-match this strategy will equally help address underemployment and thereby foster economic development in the area.