In developing a scholarly community engaged in better understanding the education and training needs of post school youth who make their livelihoods, the project aimed to deliver an edited book.  During the initial call of Book I, Skills for Livelihoods, the call received a large response from scholars and researchers. The response emphasised the need and aptitude for research in this area. This led to the decision to expand the project into a second book that would include some of the excellent abstracts received from emerging scholars in South Africa and expand to invite scholars research on Skills and Livelihoods in Sub-Saharan Africa. As such, the project manages the publication of the following edited books:

 

  1. Putting Skills to Work: Skills, Livelihoods, and the Informal Sector.

This volume is edited by Lesley Powell (University of Cape Town), Adam Cooper (Human Sciences Research Council), Simon McGrath (University of Glasgow), Trent Brown (University of Tokyo), and Azra Rajah (Nelson Mandela University). The book aims to pull together into one volume a range of theoretical, conceptual and methodological lenses that bring together the concepts of skills and livelihoods to explore how they enable young people in various parts of the global south to better realise the lives they and their families have reason to value.

 

  1. Skills and Livelihoods for the Informal Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa.

This volume is edited by Lesley Powell (University of Cape Town), Adam Cooper (Human Sciences Research Council), Joyceline Alla- Mensah (Open University), and Azra Rajah (Nelson Mandela University) will edit the volume. The volume aims to highlight southern epistemologies and knowledge systems (including indigenous knowledge systems) that empowers marginalised communities and creates more holistic and inclusive approaches to livelihoods that draw upon a wider range of perspectives and expertise. Furthermore, it aims to decolonise existing canons of research and literature that are strongly influenced by research in the global north that has a tendency of erasing the lived experiences of the global south.