Brief Description:

Online placement (E-Volunteer)

Partner Location Tanzania

Start Date Nov - Dec 2019 (flexible)

Length of Placement 4 Months

Language Requirements English

The E-Volunteer’s Role

Our Cuso International team in Tanzania is seeking support from 4 researchers to collaborate on this exciting research project. This work will help inform our programming in Tanzania under our new proposal starting April 1, 2020.

Tanzania is set to experience a “youth bulge” resulting in a large and young working age group. People under 25 make up more than 66% of the population - projected to double in the next two decades. 36% of girls between 20 and 24 years old were married before the age of 18 and 7% of them before the age of 15. In terms of job market, 900,000 young people enter the job market in Tanzania every year, with only 4% successfully completing secondary level education and about 75% of employed young people are active in the agriculture sector, and less than 7% hold public sector wage jobs.

More investment in young people, particularly girls in education, health and skills is critical as failure to do that: high dependency ratios, high unemployment rate, unrest and violence will keep happening.

This project hopes to address a major gap in Tanzania by providing start-up capital or accelerator capital to young entrepreneurs in the country. Entrepreneurship is the basic solution in increasing employment for young people, however this initiative is critically affected by lack of either a start up capital or accelerator capital to young entrepreneurs because they cannot easily access loans from the financial service providers as they don’t have collaterals to mortgage.

Any mechanism that will provide access to finance for young people will help to increase productivity, profitability and employability of this rapidly growing group in the country.

Your role and an e-volunteer:

A team of 4 researchers will contribute to a report of similar models that have been deployed in other countries, share lessons learned, and lead the development of a grant manual to guide funding of the initiative that will ensure the process is competitive and friendly for supporting young pioneers in business innovations.

Essential Academic Qualifications:

-A completed degree in Business, Entrepreneurship or in Social Sciences/International Development with a concentration on sustainable economic development.

Essential Professional Background:

-At least two years of academic or professional experience in a researching capacity.

-Experience with entrepreneurship, micro-business, venture capital or grant research.

About E-Volunteering

Cuso International’s e-volunteering program welcomes new and returning volunteers to work with our international program partners and volunteers remotely. E-Volunteering offers many of the benefits gained from international volunteering, while having the extra advantage of fitting into one's regular weekly schedule without needing a passport. Contributing and giving back to a community, gaining new skills, and making new connections are common benefits of e-volunteering and for Cuso International it is a great opportunity to engage more people in its mission.

E-Volunteers are expected to supply their own basic home office equipment, Internet and have a moderate knowledge of computer technology. Some of our partners are located in remote areas with unreliable internet connection. In addition, for some of our partners, this is their first experience working with e-volunteers so flexibility and patience is a valuable e-volunteer characteristic.

E-Volunteers spend approximately 3-4 months in a placement and spend 2-10 hours per week working as an e-volunteer depending on the project requirements.

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