Established in 1990, the International Youth Foundation (IYF) is working in more than 70 countries to improve the conditions and prospects for young people. Millions of young people have gained access to life skills, education, job training and opportunities critical to their future.

IYF believes there are thousands of effective programs throughout the world that are making profound differences in the lives of young people. Rather than inventing new programs, IYF identifies programs that work and strengthens their impact and expands their reach.

Program support vocational training, health education, recreation, cultural tolerance, environmental awareness, and the development of leadership, conflict resolution and decision-making skills.

IYF partners with many other corporate, government and civil society sectors and also partners with multi-lateral organizations such as the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Multilateral Investment Fund of the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB).

Program initiatives are concentrated in four general areas:

EDUCATION - Provides expanded access to information technology, innovative school reform, and instructional support for teachers. Projects include information technology as a teaching tool in rural schools in China, and e-learning program for out-of-school children in the Philippines, a children’s rights curriculum introduced in Russia, in-service training for teachers in Poland.

EMPLOYABILITY - Improve young people’s employment, entrepreneurial and personal skills. Projects include an initiative to prepare youth in Latin America and the Caribbean for jobs in the information technology field, and a project to promote employment for more than 35,000 youth in South Africa, Malawi, Mozambique and Rwanda.

LEADERSHIP AND ENGAGEMENT - Inspire, support and promote youth engagement as leaders of positive social change. Programs include a program in Brazil that mobilizes college students to tutor disadvantaged children in reading, a comprehensive life skills program for youth in Japan, a life skills program for Philippine out-of-school youth aimed at providing them with employment skills.

HEALTH EDUCATION AND AWARENESS - Providing youth with information and personal skills needed to make informed and healthy choices. IYF’s Empowering Africa’s Young People Initiative is an HIV/AIDS prevention program being implemented in Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia.

More information on their programs, including donation opportunities, are available on their website.