Replication of soft skills training in the Rohingya camp and host community in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh

The Population Council in collaboration with Research, Training and Management International (RTMI) and Underprivileged Children’s Education Program (UCEP) implemented a pilot project on soft skills training in Cox’s Bazar in 2022 and 2023. The purpose of this training was to improve the personal, social, and financial management skills of Rohingya youth, which would be useful on their return to Myanmar or during their interim period of stay in Bangladesh. This pilot initiative also included host community youth. The Council found the soft skills training relevant and necessary for the lives of Rohingya and host community youth and identified an increase in demand for the training. Although several United Nations agencies, nongovernmental organizations, and private organizations are actively working in the camps and host communities, the coverage of soft skills training programs is limited and uneven against increasing demand for the training among Rohingya and local youth. The need for increasing the coverage of soft skills training in the Rohingya camp has been accentuated in different reports. Based on the positive response from the pilot training program and increasing demand for the training, the Population Council designed and supported the scale-up of soft skills training intervention in the camp and host community. This report describes the evolution of the soft skills training program, from the development stage to pilot testing and then to replication in the Rohingya camp and host community. It also narrates the lessons learned from the replication of the training intervention and outlines a plan for sustainability.