Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AAMA)
Empowering underserved youth to realise their potential
The Trafigura Foundation is enabling the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans (AAMA) to provide underserved young people in one of the largest cities in the United States with the skills and confidence to further their education and make successful careers.
The challenge
Youth unemployment is a pressing problem in the Houston area, with nearly one in seven young adults between 16 to 24 years old – a total of 110,000 people – who are neither employed nor in education or training programs. The Latino community is particularly affected, with 17% of youth out of work or school and about half of all adults lacking complete high school studies.
The solution
The Trafigura Foundation joined forces with AAMA, which has more than 50 years of experience in the education and training of disadvantaged communities, to establish the AAMA Work and Learn Center in Houston. The centre empowers young people through a programme blending professional and soft skills training with practical opportunities for learning and work experience.
Previously, the Trafigura Foundation helped develop and implement the concept behind the Work and Learn Center in Stamford, Connecticut, and New Orleans, Louisiana.
Partnership impact
The Work and Learn Center in Houston provides a six-week career readiness programme to empower youth with the skills and confidence they need to advance in life, aiming to transition at least 50 percent of those who enrol into employment and a further 20 percent into further education.
The centre has also founded a social enterprise that offers graphic design services, social media marketing, and product production and employs youth from the programme as an internship opportunity. The partnership aims to develop this into a fully functional business generating revenue for the centre while providing on-the-job training to budding young people lacking soft skills and workplace skills.
The partnership (2020-2025) aims to:
- Enroll 210 students in the programme
- See at least 80% of them employed, in further education or participating in the social enterprise
