YES Leader: Ms. Rose Mary Reyes
Email : reyesrosem@gmail.com

Vision : To create sustainable live hoods for young people in vulnerable communities, by improving their skills and talents.

Background : The youth of 15 to 24 years of age represent a high labor force of Panama. The urban labor is employed in the sectors of low productivity, and the youth employment represents between 14% and 25% The States like Veraguas, Darien, Columbus and the indigenous districts have the highest participation of the young people working in the service and trade sctors.

About the Network : YES Panama has approximately one thousand members from adolescents to adult young people, and has partnership with Panama Verde, its host Agency. YES Panama has its office located in Clayton near to other key organizations and the City of the Knowledge. The network has been focusing in the renewable energy sector and getting support for institutions such the Shell Foundation. YES Panama has also worked closely with Fundacion E in the process to learning its methodology.

Current Major Initiatives :

• YES Panama recently has done an agreement with Program Water and Youth. During the World Water Day YES Panama celebrated the event with a walk in the provinces (Colon, Veraguas, Cocle and Chiriqui). Local authorities, manager of enterprises, and other young people organized diverse spaces and participated in the activity with banners about global warming and its impact on the water sources. This initiative had a wide coverage of the media.
• From April 2009 YES Panama is working to do workshops in micro and macro plan of Fundacion E in Panama with associations of artistic women around the country. YES Panama is speaking about the issue with Pro Artesanas that has 12 artist groups in Panama. The initiative would start with 3 women group.
• YES Panama will continue looking at the seed capital for El Artistico (an initiative running in Dominican Republic) and also it is working to reply the Project Finance Intelligency in Howard (city) with the Fundation Ama-me focused on young people with limited resources.

Key Accomplishments :

• A synergistic alliance has formed between YES Panama, Panama Verde, APRODEC and Water and Youth to have a combined office in Clayton.
• YES Panama has local and multi sector alliances and capacity of technical execution and infrastructure.
• YES Panama had an important role being the country host of the II YES Latin America Forum where more than 200 people from many countries around the world met.
• As part of the outcomes of this activity the “Latin American Agenda on Youth Entrepreneurship 2008-2010 was developed and shared widely with the support of UNFPA. This Forum was on policies, partnerships and programs for entrepreneurship and was a regional preparation for the YES 2008 Global Summit.
• The YES Panama Forum publications where launched in Spanish. The research made for these documents is currently serving as key date base for the diverse materials and reports of the YCNs in the region.
• In Panama the YES Latin American Award 2008 was given to Mr. Jose Ignacio Morales for his support to youth employment with his successful program “El Artístico” in the Dominican Republic.
• YES Panama has significant media coverage of the local and national media of the country. It is considered as an authority on youth issues in Panama.