Fulfilling Jobs for Peace brings young people together to understand what matters to them, learn with others, and shape their own paths toward work that provides income, dignity, and a sense that what they do matters.

For many young people, finding a way into work is something they largely have to figure out on their own. Financial pressure, family expectations, and the examples set by friends, siblings, or public figures can shape choices before there has been much room to ask a more personal question: What is right for me, now?

We want to create more room for that question.

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Start with what is already there

Every young person already brings something: values, abilities, experience, curiosity, relationships and the capacity to make choices.

A programme does not create those things. It may help someone recognise them, develop them or connect them to opportunities, but the starting point is already there.

You matter; what you can contribute matters too.

That contribution may happen through formal employment, informal work, a business, creative work, a trade, care for others or several ways of earning and contributing over time.

From who you are to what you can build

1. Know Yourself: Understanding yourself means paying attention to what you care about, the values you want to live by, what you are good at and what you hope to contribute. Knowing yourself does not remove the pressures around you. It gives you a clearer place from which to respond to them.

2. Learn Together: Finding your own path does not mean figuring everything out alone. Peers can share experience, challenge assumptions and help you see possibilities you may not have considered. Mentors and others with experience can also offer perspective and connections while leaving the choices with you.

3. Shape Your Path: There is no single picture of fulfilling work. The path may involve a profession, informal work, a business, a trade, creative work or several sources of income. It may also change as your circumstances, responsibilities and interests change.

Why we begin by listening

Many youth employment efforts begin with jobs, skills or training. Those can be essential, especially when you need income now.

We begin earlier, but we do not stop at reflection.

We want to understand what young people value and aspire to, alongside the realities of how they earn a living. What work are they doing now? What makes it uncertain? What stops them progressing? What are they already trying? What might realistically improve their choices?

The first cohort will explore these questions through people and networks they already know. Some conversations may happen one-to-one. Others may happen through small groups, community gatherings, media, social networks or initiatives that already exist.

What we hear should change what comes next.

See how we begin →

Where we hope this leads

Over the next five years, we want more young people to have what too often depends on luck: room to understand themselves, people they can learn with, and the confidence and connections to shape their own paths.

We hope the first conversations grow into a peer-led network where young people support one another, try ideas in their own settings and share what proves useful.

Girls and young women need to be central to that journey. Their choices about work, education, care, mobility, and family may be shaped by pressures different from those faced by young men.

We do not want to build a large organisation that everyone depends on. We want to find simple ways of learning, connecting and sharing that young people can use and adapt themselves.

How it can grow

For us, scale does not mean copying the same programme from one place to another.

A useful question can travel. A peer conversation can be repeated. A practical tool can be adapted. A story from one community can help someone elsewhere see another possibility.

We are starting with the first cohort and the people they already know. What proves useful can then move through peer networks, communities, social media and, later, a shared knowledge platform.

Growth should come from people finding value in what emerges and choosing to carry it further.

Meet the first cohort

The first cohort is where the idea meets experience. Its members help us test the questions, try different ways of listening and learn from what young people are already doing. They are not expected to represent all young people.

Their role is to help shape what Fulfilling Jobs for Peace becomes.

Meet the first cohort →

Join the conversation

You do not need to have everything figured out. You can share your experience, join a conversation, bring a few people together or tell us about something you are already doing.

There are different ways to begin.

Take part →