A quality education. Equal opportunity. A fair shot at work and a livable wage. Ask any young person what they want out of life, and you will likely hear some version of this, whether they grew up in rural Liberia or a major U.S. city.

International Youth Day’s 2026 theme, “Different Contexts, Common Aspirations,” recognizes that young people everywhere share the same hopes, even as the paths to reach them vary widely. For many, that path starts with something foundational: the ability to read, write, and do basic math. Without those skills, the doors to further education, employment, and opportunity stay closed—regardless of how much a young person wants to walk through them.

That is the premise behind the Youth Educational Empowerment Program (YEEP!), a joint initiative of the Luminos Fund and Liberia’s Ministry of Youth and Sports: that strong literacy and numeracy skills unlock opportunity for out-of-school youth.

This year, 916 young Liberians ages 15 to 25 graduated from YEEP!’s second cohort. Each graduate now has the foundational skills to move forward into further vocational training.

The Gap Vocational Training Alone Doesn’t Close

Many governments and donors invest in education as a lever for economic growth, expecting a better-trained workforce to translate into broader gains. In practice, much of that investment flows toward Technical and Vocational Education and Training (TVET), on the assumption that job-specific skills are what youth need to find work.

Liberia faces this challenge directly. Youth unemployment and underemployment remain a persistent concern, with most young workers cycling through informal, insecure work rather than steady employment. But research shows TVET can only go so far: most out-of-school youth in low- and middle-income countries lack the basic literacy and numeracy skills needed to benefit from vocational training in the first place. Comparatively few programs are designed to close that gap by building the literacy and numeracy skills needed to succeed in training.

In Liberia, civil wars and the Ebola epidemic shuttered classrooms for years at a stretch. As a result, generations of young people grew up with school interrupted or out of reach altogether. Many reached their teens and twenties without ever learning to read, write, or do basic math.

YEEP! was built to close this gap, addressing an often-overlooked need in youth employment programming: before young people can learn a trade, many first need a second chance to learn to read. Luminos launched the program as a pilot in 2024, adapting its accelerated learning model—proven to take children from not recognizing letters to reading short stories within a single year—for out-of-school youth.

Luminos YEEP! students clap and sing together during a joyful lesson. (Photo: Images Africa for the Luminos Fund) 

Alongside literacy and numeracy, students also learn vocational skills such as tailoring, pastry making, and soap making, giving them an early, practical foothold before moving into further specialized training.

One YEEP! student put it simply: “I am grateful for this program because I struggled to write when I came in. Imagine a beautiful woman like me couldn’t write her name. Now I don’t have to ask someone to read my text messages for me.”

What Comes Next

Literacy and numeracy are not the end goal. They are the entry requirement for what comes after. The graduates from the program’s most recent cohort now move into further vocational skills training run by government trainers, building toward skilled trade, employment, and entrepreneurship. As capacity grows within this partnership, responsibility for the model increasingly shifts to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, ensuring the program continues to reach young Liberians for years to come.

916 young Liberians spent years shut out of a classroom. This year, they walked back in, and came out the other side reading, writing, and doing math with confidence. That is the first step and most important step on a longer journey: the ability to take on vocational training, pursue further learning, and build a livelihood on their own terms. And through the partnership with the Ministry, thousands more young Liberians will soon follow.

To learn more about the Luminos program in Liberia, click here.