Future First Global Shortlisted for Bond Innovation Award
Future First Global Recognised For Innovative Secondary School Alumni Programmes Future First Global was recognised for its innovative school-to-work transition programme at the Bond International Development Awards yesterday, 1 June, in London. Now in their second year, the awards recognise the contributions of many of Bond’s member organisations, working in some of the most challenging environments around the world. The entries were judged by a high-profile panel of experts and the winners of the Innovation, Humanitarian, the Positive Collaboration and the Inspiring Campaign awards were announced by guest presenter Dharsna Soni, from Channel 4 News.The Innovation Awards category celebrates international …
We’re Hiring! Managing Director, Future First Global
Position: Managing Director Based: London, United Kingdom Salary range: £40-£50k Future First Global is a recently established charity working to turn schools into communities around the world. We advise governments, school networks and NGOs on how to mobilise former students as careers and educational role models, work experience providers, mentors, school governors and more. When Future First was launched in the UK five years ago, less than 1% of non-selective state secondary schools ran alumni networks. Today that number is over 20% and we are seeing a similar growth trajectory in Kenya. Future First Global was launched on the back …
Nurturing the next generation of young Kenyan women
Pauline Wanja is Future First Kenya Programme and Advocacy Manager. It is a sunny Saturday and this weekend’s alumni events takes me to a school nestled in the leafy suburbs of Nairobi. The school is one of the oldest national public girls school in the country, the 100 year old buildings make for a spectacular view and working on Saturday afternoon feels like an adventure. Today’s event brings together 150 student from The Kenya High School and 21 alumni and mentors for an afternoon sessions titled “One more step into my career Journey”. The first session is a plenary session …
University alumni networks are about so much more than making money
Emily Laurie, Managing Director of Future First Global, blogs on what university alumni networks have in common with alumni networks for secondary schools. I was lucky to do an MSc at a brilliant university – the London School of Economics – and want to stay connected to what is such a great establishment. But in reality when I see emails from LSE Alumni, I tend to delete them out of an assumption they will be asking for money. Well not anymore! Yesterday I went to meet with some members of the LSE alumni team, as at Future First Global we are interested to …
It is time to unleash the potential of former students to give back in the Arab Region
In the Arab region youth unemployment currently stands at 29%. There is an urgent need to create jobs for young people and provide them with the skills, guidance, confidence, empowerment and education to prepare them for the job market. Finding solutions to this is the focus of the Arab Youth Employment Forum taking place this week in Amman, Jordan. One innovative solution to this daunting situation is mentoring, which can support Arab youth to develop entrepreneurial skills and thinking as well as gain an understanding of their areas of talent and support their leadership development. Our global research study of the …
Breaking barriers between education and employment
We talked to Alex Beard, Director of Systems Change at Teach for All, about his reflections on the challenges that young people face as they are leaving school and preparing to enter the world of work. How did you get involved in youth issues? After university, I was working as consultant in the UK and started volunteering in a local community initiative in Hackney Wick in London. I found that I actually enjoyed it more than my real job and decided to retrain as a Teacher through the Teach First programme. I taught in Elephant & Castle for two years …
Alumni Role Models Talk to Girls at TumuTumu School about Future Options and Success
TumuTumu public High School for girls is a couple of hours outside Nairobi, in Kenya. Almost 900 students at the school came together on 8 March for an all day careers event to hear from former students of their school about their careers and to discuss future options, life skills and more. The event, led by the alumni and facilitated by Future First Kenya, was the first of the kind at the school. Students heard from and spoke at length with 21 alumni, including a civil engineer, a banker, a photographer and a Human Resources Manager. 95% of the girls who attended …
‘Future First Global’ and ‘I Choose Life – Africa’ Launch New Partnership
80,000 young people in Kenya to access role models and support for school-to-work transition Nairobi, Kenya 18 March 2015 – Future First Global and ‘I Choose Life – Africa’ (ICL) launched an exciting new partnership today which will provide access to role models and support in the transition from school into jobs, for some 80,000 young Kenyans over the next two years. The two-year partnership, launched in Nairobi, will see the expansion of the Future First programme into at least 80 government secondary schools across eight counties – Nairobi, Meru, Laikipia Machakos, Taita Taveta, Uasin Gishu, Turkana and Mombasa – reaching some of the most …
Former students are inspiring and empowering current students to work harder at school in Kenya
Nairobi, Kenya 5 March 2015 – A new report launched today by Future First Global shows the transformative impact alumni are having in the employment potential for secondary school students in Nairobi. The report ‘An Alumni Community for Every School: Learning from Kenya pilot programmes’ examines a two year pilot programme across fifteen schools in Nairobi. The programme has been piloting Future First’s school based alumni model which aims to improve school to work transition by engaging former students as careers advisers, mentors, providers of work placements and as donors. While improvements in access to education has meant young people …
Adolescents twice as likely to be out of school as children of primary school age, say UNESCO and UNICEF
Around 63 million adolescents between the ages of 12 to 15 years old are denied their right to an education, according to a new joint report from the UNESCO Institute for Statistics and UNICEF, Fixing the Broken Promise of Education for All: Findings from the Global Initiative on Out-of-School Children, released today during the Education World Forum. Globally, 1 in 5 adolescents is not in school compared to 1 in 11 primary school-age children. So adolescents are twice as likely to be out of school as their younger counterparts. The report also shows that if current trends continue, 25 million …
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