An entire generation of youth in southern Africa is in crisis. In Swaziland alone, a country smaller than New Jersey and with a total population of one million people, UNICEF estimates there will be 120,000 orphaned children by 2010 – representing 22% of all children in Swaziland.

Kuluma is a project of YouthAssets’ whose mission is to empower youth in southern Africa, particularly those heading households, by engaging them with information and communication technologies to connect them to the knowledge they need to broaden their choices for the future. With this urgent need to support orphans, traditionally strong communities are being strained beyond capacity. Although their parents have died, youth are encouraged to stay on their homestead to continue to claim their house and land – a very valuable asset for food production and shelter. However, they remain isolated from support networks and resources without an adult caretaker and are responsible for raising their brothers and sisters on their own. A mechanism is needed to reduce their isolation and connect them to the resources they need.

Kuluma proposes to take advantage of the mobile phone network in Swaziland, our pilot country, to connect youth who are heading households and give them a voice.  Connecting small groups of youth via teleconferences, youth will have the opportunity to tell their story and give and receive support from their peers. Each group will receive a collective fund to manage and to decide collaboratively how to use the money (distribute the funds evenly, use it as capital to start small businesses, or any other idea) to support themselves sustainably and effectively. YouthAssets will learn from the youth themselves, and will use this knowledge to develop scalable strategies to reach more of the 10,000 orphan headed-households within Swaziland.

Please select Kuluma for USAID's Development 2.0 Challenge and help YouthAssets to support youth headed-households in Africa. Thank you.