A major new national campaign has launched that aims to help young people make connections with adults to advise and connect them with ideas and opportunities..
Led by the America’s Promise Alliance, which focuses on high school graduation issues, the YES Project—short for Young, Employed and Successful—brings together more than 450 organizations across the country that work in education, business, philanthropy, and youth development. The idea is that they’d all contribute to a brain trust to help young adults develop the skills, connections, and support to find—and succeed in—jobs.
The aim of the initiative is to land jobs for at least 95 percent of young people ages 16 to 24 who are actively seeking work by the year 2030.
The campaign rests on a three-part idea: In order to succeed, young people need to be ready, connected, and supported. The moving parts of the initiative fall into those three areas, although some are more fully developed than others at this early stage.