Swahili Youth Employment Program

The vast majority of the Black population live in large urban areas. In 2016, 94.3% of Black people lived in Canada’s census metropolitan areas, compared with 71.2% of the country’s total population. Toronto had the largest Black population in the country, with 442,015 people or 36.9% of Canada’s Black population, a number of this Black population (youth and adults) comes from African countries, specifically Swahili speaking countries such as; Burundi, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, DRC Congo and South Sudan.

The Swahili Society Centre Youth employment program is an integrated strategy, which aims to provide flexible and holistic services to support all young Swahili speaking Africans develop the skills and gain paid work experience to successfully transition in the labour market. The SYEP has been designed to respond to a range of labour market challenges faced by youth, particularly for those facing barriers to employment.