Our Story
Youth Rise International (YoRI) is a legally registered and licensed grassroots non-profit organization (NPO) in Ghana that focuses on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, promotion of climate justice and prevention of human trafficking and forced labour. We serve rural, hard-to-reach and vulnerable communities in Ghana.
We are driven by the infectious passion of our Founder & Executive Director, David K. Awusi. Being born by school dropout and extremely poor parents, he went through the scourges of poverty, hunger and suffering. After losing his mother at age 9, in that state of vulnerability, he was migrated to stay with family relatives where he was forced into hazardous child labour in the agriculture sector and then street hawking. Through determination and hard-work, David rose to become the first university graduate in his family and community. Inspired by his story, in 2015, he started a personal initiative of providing free tuition for children in his community, scholarship for orphan children and economic empowerment poor single mothers. In 2018, he formalized this initiative to Youth Rise International (YoRI) to meet the increasing overwhelming demands and in need in the grassroots communities we serve.
Youth Rise International (YoRI) is member of Coalition of NGOs Against Child Trafficking (CNACT), the West African Coalition Against Trafficking In Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (WACTIPSOM) and also recognized by the Government of Ghana particularly the Human Trafficking Secretariat (HTS) under the Ministry of Gender, Children and Social Protection (MoGCSP). We are legally registered and licensed by the Non-profit Organization (NPO) Secretariat of Ghana and actively engaged in various national dialogues and advocacy for children, youth, women, the poor, vulnerable and the socially-excluded in Ghana.
Our Mission
To eradicate poverty by empowering the poor, vulnerable, marginalized and socially-excluded to become prosperous through education; financial inclusion; decent work; family strengthening, child and maternal health and advocacy.
Our Vision
A world of zero poverty and hunger but shared prosperity, strong families and good health for all.
Our Governance
We have subscribed to the sound international nonprofit corporate governance systems and practices recommended by the World Association of NGOs (WANGO). To this end, Youth Rise International is governed by a 7-member Board of Advisors with a combined experience of over 8 years. Members of the Board were intentional selected from Africa , Asia and United States of America w diverse field of expertise such as academia, international development, banking and finance, law, education, media and development communication. Our Board is the highest policy decision-making body.
Our Strategic Focus
1. EDUCATION
Youth Rise International (YoRI) assists boys, girls and youth to enjoy their universal right to education. We focus on both out-of-school and schooling individuals. We promote school enrolment, retention and academic performance. We are passionate about education because it’s is a strong key for breaking the vicious cycle of poverty. It’s rather unfortunate there is low enrolment and high school dropout rates globally and even more pronounced in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) contrary to SDG 4: Quality Education. This is very critical because, in 2018, over 258.4million children, adolescents and youth were out of school. Sadly, 9million girls of primary school age will never have the opportunity to learn to read and write in primary school compared to about 3million boys. And across SSA, 4million girls will never attend school compared to 2million boys (UNESCO Institute of Statistics, 2018).
2. DECENT WORK
Everyone has the right to a life of dignity and respect. But nothing robs a person of dignity than joblessness. We campaign against and prevent indecent work such as child labour, child trafficking, sexual exploitation and modern-day slavery. However, we promote, train and mentor children and the youth into gainful employment and entrepreneurship development thereby breaking the chain of youth unemployment in congruence with SDG 8: Decent Work & Economic Growth. This is critical because, Of the 429million young workers worldwide, around 55million or 13%, are suffering extreme poverty while 71million of them or 17 %, live in moderate poverty. Ghana is faced with 12% youth unemployment and more than 50% underemployment, both higher than overall unemployment rates in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) countries (World Bank, 2020).
3. FINANCIAL INCLUSION
The poor are not lazy. Majority of the poor we have encountered are the most hardworking. What they usually lack is hope, seed capital, capacity and guidance. Youth Rise International (YoRI) empowers the poor through training, financial literacy and seed funding and we gladly watch them as they rise out of poverty and obscurity into prosperity. We give high priority to vulnerable women such as single mothers, widows and victims of forced labour and sexual exploitation. Our Financial Inclusion thematic area aims at achieving SDG 1 & 2 This is critical, because, today about 120million additional people are living in poverty as a result of the pandemic, with the total expected to rise to about 150million by the end of 2030.
4. FAMILY, CHILD AND MATERNAL HEALTH
Every child has the right to live. However, thousands of children and/or their mother die during labour each year. Youth Rise International’s vision is that no child dies during or after labour and so is any pregnant women. We work with pregnant women throughout 9months of pregnant till they deliver safely and we continue to support them in pursuit of SDG 3 & 5. Also, we work towards a world where every child lives in a loving, caring and supportive family. This is critical because, today, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, account for 86 per cent of maternal deaths worldwide. Sub-Saharan Africans suffer from the highest maternal mortality ratio – 533 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, or 200,000 maternal deaths a year.
5. RESEARCH & ADVOCACY
Youth Rise International (YoRI) builds synergies through relevant collaboration and partnership with local, regional and international governmental, non-governmental organizations and development partners. This is based on our belief and resolution that we can’t eradicates poverty and creates prosperity alone but together we in consonance with SDG 17. It is against this background that we have joined Coalition of NGOs Against Child Trafficking (CNACT), CIVICUS World Alliance, (West African Coalition Against Trafficking In Persons and Smuggling of Migrants (WACTIPSOM), Ghana Philanthropy Forum (GPF) among others.
In 2021, we have been part of the consultative meetings and stakeholders technical working sessions in developing Ghana’s current anti-human trafficking National Plan of Action and corresponding Communication Strategy.
Also, we have strong expertise in communication for development (C4D) and media (e.g. radio, newspaper, online, TV etc.) and we leverage on it in our advocacy work influencing national, regional and global policy.
Our Impacts
Today, we have impacted the lives 68,652 boys, girls, men and women across Ghana and several countries in Africa leveraging on new and traditional media, volunteers, in-kind contribution and strategic partnerships to amplify the impacts of our work.
The thrilling and compelling story of Juliet is among several hundreds of lives we have impacted across Ghana.
In 2016, we identified a poor single mother with 4 children in Pomadze, a rural community in Winneba. She had no job and destitute. Due to the poverty, Juliet, her first child was forced into child labour - hawking the street of Accra. Juliet had dropped out of primary school and selling “sachet water” under the scorching sun. We withdrew her from child labour and reintegrate her back to her mother. We helped the mother to rent a place, trained and gave her seed capital to start a micro-business. Youth Rise International enrolled her in a public school and provided everything she needed. Later in 2018, considering her incredible academic performance, we moved her to the best performing private school in Winneba. We paid her school fees in full, bought uniform, school bags and all the bills fully paid by us. In June 2020, Juliet successfully completed Junior High School and her single mother could now afford to send her remaining children to school. Today, Juliet is in the Senior High School and she is confidence that she is on track to achieving her dream of becoming an outstanding lawyer.
Our Media Advocacy and Impacts Footprint
With our strong expertise in media and communication for development (C4D), we use both new and traditional media to engage in local and national advocacy. Kindly check out these resources for your learning.
· Child protection advocacy: https://bit.ly/3skcndm
· Poverty alleviation advocacy: https://bit.ly/35EQr52 and https://bit.ly/3rtyU8C
· Anti-human trafficking advocacy: https://bit.ly/3golJPL and https://bit.ly/3rtyU8C
· Youth employment advocacy: https://bit.ly/3GsZKlx
Our Contact
Youth Rise International,
Postal Box WB 524,
Winneba – Ghana.
Email: youthriseghana@gmail.com
Cell: (+233) 244 850 345
LinkedIn: @YouthRiseInternational
Facebook: @YoRIghana
Blog: yorighana.business.site
Our Story
Youth Rise International (YoRI) is a legally registered and licensed grassroots non-profit organization (NPO) in Ghana that focuses on eradicating extreme poverty and hunger, promotion of climate justice and prevention of human trafficking and forced labour. We serve rural, hard-to-reach and vulnerable communities in Ghana.
We are driven by the infectious passion of our Founder & Executive Director, David K. Awusi. Being born by school dropout and extremely poor parents, he went through the scourges of poverty, hunger and suffering. After losing his mother at age 9, in that state of vulnerability, he was migrated to stay with family relatives where he was forced into hazardous child labour in the agriculture sector and then street hawking. Through determination and hard-work, David rose to become the first university graduate in his family and community. Inspired by his story, in 2015, he started a personal initiative of providing free…