INJAZ is born from our unwavering belief in the boundless potential of youth across the MENA region, and our desire to catalyze this potential into success and increased economic prosperity.
Securing meaningful employment is one of the toughest challenges facing youth in the MENA region. Even as youth under the age of 25 make up 60% of the population, a staggering 29% of them are unemployed across the region. That’s roughly 50 million individuals who are unable to access the labor market, lead fulfilling lives, and drive economic prosperity in the region. This has led to a looming sense of despair among MENA youth, less than half of whom are optimistic about their country’s ability to fix the unemployment problem. Although many factors contribute to the issue, it is clear that one major problem is the disconnect between the skills young people are learning in school and those required by the rapidly changing job market.
At the same time, MENA youth are hungry for opportunity, bursting with potential, eager to learn, to create, to innovate and shape the future of the region. It is precisely this force that INJAZ sees as a great resource to be tapped for the region’s future prosperity. INJAZ comes to bridge the gap between the challenges our youth face and the enormous potential they carry.
In 1999, the late Soaraya Salti set in motion her vision for an enabled and capable youth in the region by founding INJAZ Al-Arab. Since then, through partnering with governments, the private sector, individuals and organizational sponsors, INJAZ has worked with the single goal of empowering youth to take the lead and reverse the economic crisis. A turning point came for us in 2004 when we joined the global network of Junior Achievement Worldwide (one of the largest NGOs serving youth globally), becoming the Regional Operating Center for the MENA region.
It's amazing to look back at the networks we’ve developed, the number of youth we’ve reached, and the partnerships we’ve been built since 2004. INJAZ started with just one office, now we operate in 13 countries. We’ve grown from a few hundred volunteers to more than 100,000+ thousand, a few schools and partnerships to over 4,000+ schools, 400+ universities, and 13 ministries of education. INJAZ has become the largest non-profit organization dedicated to overcoming unemployment in the region. Through the work of our member nations, we have reached the 5 million student mark!
Working under four main pillars: workforce readiness, financial literacy, entrepreneurship and STEM, we strive to bridge the gap between education and the requirements of the labor market through hands-on, highly relevant training and mentoring programs delivered by volunteer business leaders and entrepreneurs. Our work in this regard contributes towards SDG #4, Quality Education, especially its target to “substantially increase the number of youth and adults who have relevant skills… for employment, decent jobs and entrepreneurship.” The transformation we see in the lives of our students is incredibly exciting. Over and over, we see INJAZ youth discover their purpose in life, expand their horizons, turn challenges into opportunities, start their own companies and give back to their communities in amazing ways. In this way, we are directly contributing to SDG # 8, Decent Work & Economic Growth, which encourages entrepreneurship and job creation and seeks to substantially reduce youth not in employment, education and training (YEETS). The impact we’ve measured and witnessed has inspired INJAZ to take on an even bigger goal: to reach 1 million students annually across the region by 2025. We know this is ambitious, but we believe that the collaborations that have brought us this far – with ministries of education and private sector players – will continue to deliver the system-level impact that we seek, on a much larger scale. SDG # 17, Partnerships for the Goals, tells us that partnerships are the way forwards towards achieving the SDGs, that is why we will continue to forge and strengthen partnerships within the public and private sectors as well as with civil society organizations, towards supporting and inspiring youth along their journey to success.