Youth Ahead Zimbabwe (YAZ)

Mission

To provide school dropouts, unemployed, and retrenched youths of Kuwadzana and surrounding suburbs of Dzivarasekwa with technical skills to break the cycle of poverty and leadership skills to break the culture of silence.

Programs

Every year since 1996, YAZ has provided 50 unemployed young women and men in the Kuwadzana suburbs with technical training, micro-enterprise skills, and socio-economic analysis to empower youth to start their own businesses. In addition, YAZ provides training and educational materials in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, as well as counseling for its clients living with the disease.

Funded Projects on GlobalGiving

HIV/AIDS Information Center in Rural Zimbabwe

Personnel Overview

Kisha Montgomery - IDEX Program Director
In 2002, Kisha returned from a 6 month solo and self-funded tour of NGOs in Southern Africa. Before that, Kisha worked for 2.5 years as a coordinator of a welfare to work program that empowered women to self-sufficiency through employment at law firms. She also worked as an advocate for survivors of domestic violence for a year after graduating from Syracuse University Law School in 1996.

Prudence Chingwena - Executive Director
Prudence became a member of YAZ in 1996 and received training on how to launch a small sewing business. After pulling herself and her family out of poverty, she came back to YAZ in 1999 to become a YAZ trainer. Completely committed to YAZ and one of their strongest examples of success, she was appointed executive director in 2001.

Personnel Statistics

Prudence Chingwena,
Executive Director
Founded in 1996
Employees: 8
Volunteers: 12