Localized Youth Employablity Training Development | Akazi Kanoze Access & Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation

Partner Organization: Akazi Kanoze Access (Kigali, Rwanda), Beeck Center for Social Impact + Innovation
As part of the Georgetown University Impacts Fellowship
Dates: March – September 2020
Status: Completed

Quick Project Overview

As part of the Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation’s Georgetown University Impacts Fellowship, I partnered with Akazi Kanoze Access (AKA) in Rwanda to strengthen youth employment and life skills programs. Our work focused on understanding how social enterprises can scale impact sustainably while maintaining community trust and localized approaches.

• Context & Background

  Akazi Kanoze Access is a Rwandan nonprofit that empowers young people through workforce readiness, entrepreneurship training, and employment linkages. During a time when youth unemployment and psychosocial challenges were amplified by the COVID-19 pandemic, our collaboration aimed to advance youth wellbeing and economic resilience through accessible, community-based learning tools.

• Collaborators & Partners

  • Beeck Center for Social Impact & Innovation, Georgetown University

  • Akazi Kanoze Access (AKA), Kigali, Rwanda

• My Role

  • I co-designed 15+ radio and video scripts focused on employability, mental health, and youth resilience — tools that made wellbeing and career readiness more accessible to rural youth during lockdown.

  • Working alongside AKA’s local facilitators and youth leaders, we co-created multimedia curricula grounded in cultural context and everyday life.

  • I helped integrate behavioral insights into storytelling formats, ensuring that messages on perseverance, self-efficacy, and community health resonated deeply across audiences.

• Outputs

  • 15+ co-designed radio and video scripts

  • Curriculum materials and facilitation guides for community use

  • Recommendations for scaling youth-centered multimedia learning

Unfortunately, this fellowship was virtual due to COVID-19.

Impact & Learnings

This project offered me a lens into how global development intersects with local ownership — how “impact” must be defined with, not for, communities. It reinforced the importance of designing with humility, listening deeply, and centering local wisdom as the foundation for sustainable change.