Youth collaborative gets a little training help

Austin Opportunity Youth Collaborative has received a $100,000 grant from the Aspen Institute Forum for Community Solutions to help fund postsecondary and career training programs for low-income youth in the Austin area. The youth collaborative won the grant via its connection with Workforce Solutions Capital Area, which coordinates job training programs throughout Central Texas with an emphasis on careers in health care, information technology and advanced manufacturing. The collaborative targets people aged 16 to 24 who are not participating in school or the job market, with pre-pandemic demographic studies showing there were just over 24,000 such individuals in greater Austin. In 2020, Workforce Solutions helped serve 340 opportunity youth, connecting them to employment, post-secondary education or other opportunities to improve themselves economically. The Aspen Institute’s $1.6 million in total awards were funded in part by JP Morgan Chase, Prudential Financial and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.