Introducing The Prince’s Trust International

“At Prince’s Trust International we recognise that young people around the world face a multitude of challenges which prevent them from fulfilling their potential. One in five young people aged 15-to-24 are not in employment, education or training and less than 40 per cent of youth are satisfied that their education prepares them with the skills required for work. We believe that communities, governments and organisations everywhere benefit from working with and supporting young people.”  

Prince’s Trust International was founded by His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales in 2015, to share the successful programmes and expertise of The Prince’s Trust, which over 43 years has helped more than 920,000 disadvantaged young people across the UK to transform their lives. 

We work in partnership with organisations around the world to support young people aged 11-to-30 to move into work, education or training. For us, collaboration is at the core of our practice, by working with local delivery partners we can find just the right, tailored solution to address the need.  

Since 2015, we have supported over 10,000 young people across nine countries. Our programmes provide empowering opportunities, support personal development and bridge the gap between education and employment. 

What are some of our recent successes?

This year marks an exciting time for Prince’s Trust International as we begin our work within our new 2019-2024 strategic cycle. We have the ambition to grow our work, our partnerships and our impact so we can support more young people around the world. We look to strengthen our programme delivery and our offer in countries we already work in such as India, Pakistan and Jordan. This is in addition to scoping opportunities for partnerships and delivery in new countries, which has begun in Malaysia, Ghana and Kenya and will be developing throughout the next four years.  

We have already had some great success stories to kick-off our new strategic cycle. Two young people supported by our programmes were recipients of the inaugural Prince’s Trust Global Award, recognising the outstanding achievements of young people supported by Prince’s Trust International programmes. A young participant from Bhandup, India who completed our ‘Get Into’ programme with Magic Bus, and a young participant from Salt in Jordan who completed one of our pilot ‘Team’ programmes with Mercy Corps.

In March this year, His Royal Highness, The Prince of Wales announced His Highness the Aga Khan as Global Founding Patron of The Prince’s Trust work across The Prince’s Trust Group. This is an exciting partnership across Prince’s Trust Group at a time when Prince’s Trust International is developing a partnership with the Aga Khan Foundation to support young women in Bihar, India with their enterprise skills and developing community projects.  

In India, we have developed a successful and impactful partnership with Macquarie and Magic Bus delivering our ‘Get Into’ employability programme with young people. ‘Get Into’ has provided young people with opportunities to develop employability skills, confidence and aspirations, enabling them to move into sustainable jobs. 

Our work with Magic Bus has included capacity strengthening of existing livelihoods programme to ensure its focus is on workplace-readiness and have introduced work-experience as a core part of this preparation. By the end of 2019, the programme will have supported approximately 880 young people across Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune.  

In Pakistan, we have been working with SEED Ventures to successfully deliver our ‘Enterprise Challenge’ programme in schools. The programme supports young people by providing an opportunity to learn about entrepreneurship and explore their own business ideas with support from local mentors. Since 2016, Enterprise Challenge in Pakistan has run in over 30 cities, in 70 schools and with over 2000 participants.  

Why are the Charity Awards important?  

As CEO of Prince’s Trust International, I am proud to join the panel of judges for this year’s Asian Voice Charity Awards powered by Charity Clarity. What makes these Awards special is knowing that we are not just awarding an accolade to mark a milestone in an organisation’s or individuals’ journey, but that the award will provide much-needed support to continue or enhance a journey to deliver greater social impact.  

The Charity Awards provides the opportunity to shine a light on some of the great and innovative work that is going on in the sector and bring these together in a forum where we can celebrate and learn from them. It was fantastic to see a vast array of entries submitted for the awards and it has been an honour to contribute to the panel and this initiative.  

Jonathan Townsend is CEO of The Prince’s Trust International. He was also one of the Judges for the Charity Awards 2019.