YOUTH GLOW INC.
Programme Step 3 of 4 · Skill
Green skills that turn into real income.
We train women and youth in sustainable agriculture, beekeeping, community solar, business and digital skills, then link them to buyers, cooperatives and a growing Liberian honey value chain.
The project
Digital and Green Skills for Local Climate Action
With peace and a protected forest in place, women and youth learn skills that pay, starting with business and money for everyone. We plant only on land already farmed: no forest is cleared for any crop.
- Sustainable agriculture in Farmer Field Schools: cocoa, coffee and oil palm with shade trees
- Cassava, rice, vegetables, pepper and groundnut for food and income while tree crops mature
- Beekeeping and honey processing, labelling and links to buyers
- Community solar for processing and small enterprise
- Business, digital and financial skills, and a producer cooperative
Technology: Community solar for processing, digital and video training, online market links and traceable honey.
Why it matters
About 78% of Liberia’s workforce is in vulnerable or informal employment, and agriculture provides nearly 70% of jobs, so climate shocks hit livelihoods first.
99.1% of people in Nimba lack clean cooking fuel and 81% lack electricity, so firewood and charcoal keep pressure on the forest.
About 96% of forest loss in Liberia’s lowland forest range between 2000 and 2019 was driven by shifting agriculture. Better yields on land already farmed take the pressure off.
From 30 December 2026, the EU will bar cocoa grown on land cleared after 2020. Liberia sent over 17,000 tonnes of cocoa to the EU in 2024, so deforestation-free farming protects income.
Only 35.1% of Liberians aged 15 to 24 were in the labour force in the 2013 labour survey, against 63.5% of all working-age adults.
A review of 92 studies found Farmer Field Schools raise yields by 13% and incomes by 20% on average.
Sources: World Bank Liberia Economic Update, 2025, citing ILO; UNDP Liberia, NDC 3.0 summary, 2025; LISGIS, 2022 Census; Erazo-Mera et al., Environmental Conservation, 2024; Mongabay via WoodCentral, July 2026; ILO, 2020; Waddington et al., Campbell Systematic Reviews, 2014.
Results so far
Verified. 75 beekeepers trained, an 8.1-acre cocoa and citrus plot in Zortarpa and a 5-acre cashew farm in Sopea.
Where we aim to be by 2031
Indicative targets. Each project confirms its own after a baseline survey.
Skills menu
Digital and green skills, in four tracks.
Each community chooses the 3 to 4 skills that fit its forest, market and people. Everyone gets business, financial literacy and mobile money, and young people can go deeper into advanced tracks.
Forest and land
Linked to Protect
Forest monitoring and forest guards, tree nurseries, reforestation, fire prevention, biodiversity and carbon monitoring, GPS, drone and GIS mapping, satellite forest alerts
Green livelihoods
Linked to Skill
Beekeeping and honey processing, sustainable and organic farming, composting, solar irrigation, rainwater harvesting, fish farming, briquettes, biogas, recycling, eco-tourism guiding, solar installation
Business and digital
Linked to Skill and Save
Entrepreneurship and business planning, marketing and selling to buyers, WhatsApp business, digital bookkeeping, data entry, content creation, graphic design, basic coding, using AI tools
Finance and safety
Linked to Save
Financial literacy, mobile money, digital savings group records, cybersecurity and digital safety
Aligned with Liberia’s goals
- AAID 2025–2029
- Economic Transformation Pillar (job creation); Human Capital Development Pillar (youth skills)
- NDC 3.0
- Green jobs and climate-resilient value chains
- Agriculture
- Cocoa, coffee, oil palm, cassava and honey as our priority value chains
Indicators we track
- SDG 8.6.1
- Youth not in education, employment or training
- SDG 2.3.2
- Income of small-scale food producers, by sex
- SDG 4.4.1
- Youth and adults with ICT skills
- IRIS+
- Jobs created and enterprise income
- IKI / GCF
- People in paid work or group businesses
Fund the Skill step.
Each PPSS step can be funded on its own as a project, or as part of the full programme.