Turning the Wheel towards Opportunities for Youth with Disabilities
Taking their first steps towards finding a meaningful livelihood and a more autonomous future, can be challenging for every young person. But when they live with a disability, in a position of extreme poverty and marginalization, the challenges they face, can seem insurmountable. Our new online knowledge product, the WHEEL of Livelihoods, is designed for practitioners to guide youth with disabilities towards work that matters to them and a sense of belonging.
Join us for our Online Launch Event on 3 July 2025
Would you like to learn more about THE WHEEL of Livelihoods? Join us for an online launch event on 3 July to get all the insights!
Register here to be part of the launch:
The WHEEL of Livelihoods is a project cycle model and quality assurance tool to use for the design, implementation, monitoring, evaluation and learning of qualitative and inclusive livelihoods projects, or livelihoods components in Community Based Rehabilitation (CBR) programmes, to accompany youth with disabilities from a situation of unemployment and exclusion to meaningful work and inclusion..
Youth at the core
The WHEEL of livelihoods is the first youth employment promotion project cycle, that places youth with disabilities at its core – they are the central axis around which the WHEEL turns. The Personal Professional Development Plan of each individual youth informs the specifics of the intervention in relation to their personal vision for success, goals and milestones and supports them in identifying how they are making progress.
This is then used in mentoring, monitoring and learning. In so doing, each individual youth has a customised pathway of skills development and transition to work according to their own interests and needs that is delivered in an enabling family, community, training, and work environment.
Empower youths and professionals
This interactive, online tool is specifically aimed at practitioners who implement disability inclusive livelihoods projects or who empower youths with disabilities in livelihoods projects. A practitioner can be anyone working for a non-governmental organisation, a faith-based organisation, a public or private service provider, a government department, or a company. The WHEEL of Livelihoods model serves them as a roadmap to navigate the project cycle.
Based on shared learning within a community of practice, the tool was developed by Liliane Fonds and its partners implementing livelihoods projects. It is based on the lessons learned and best practices from a portfolio of livelihoods projects implemented by the Liliane Fonds partners in Cameroon, Indonesia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Vietnam. It offers various best practices to consider for both the youth as well as the stakeholders involved in creating an enabling environment.
We have seen the success of these practices from implementation in countries as far ranging as Indonesia and Kenya, in cities as well as in isolated and rural areas.
This model helps clarify which stakeholder groups to include at what stage and how. The accompanying PDF manual (available upon request) lists types of activities to consider for supporting the youth with disabilities on their own personal professional development journey. It also describes stakeholder activities to make these youth’s family, community, training, and work environments more enabling for them to achieve their personal and professional goals.
Relevant and impactful
It is our sincere wish that this WHEEL of Livelihoods model supports practitioners in developing and implementing more relevant and impactful livelihoods projects for youth with disabilities worldwide . The WHEEL is Turning—Are You Onboard?
Learn more about the WHEEL of Livelihoods here.