Guest Blog by Frederick Joseph, Keren Mahabi, Joshua Sialis, Karo Tuva
We are the Youth Economic Empowerment Team! We are from the finance industry; banking & superannuation. The challenge that we are tackling is youth unemployment struggles in Koki, Moresby South, and Port Moresby, PNG. We believe that youth are the cornerstone of development and should be empowered to activate their potential.
The PDIA course has fundamentally changed the way we view the youth unemployment challenge. Post PDIA, our core assumption was that there were not enough jobs to engage the youth. We later realized it was only a symptom. Some of the underlying causes point back to the youth being underskilled, further pointing to a dysfunctional upbringing and a chaotic environment. The course has equipped us with the necessary skills to dig deeper into the core causes of the employment issue by dissecting it into its core constituents, assessing our levers of influence in that space, and mobilizing concerted efforts for meaningful change.
Beginning with the lessons on “isomorphic mimicry”, one of the main reasons why many initiatives fail “successfully”, it begged us to wonder why. Why is it that, even with all the perceived support and help from international donors and organizations, we still fail in state development? The missing link is largely a lack of locally-driven initiatives and capability transfer, notwithstanding other context-specific norms, such as poor governance. PDIA empowered us to see that in the youth unemployment complexity, our local knowledge & experience is crucial for meaningful and sustainable change.
The process of constructing and deconstructing our youth unemployment challenge and analyzing the change space was an eye-opener for us all. We started to understand why youth unemployment matters. If we are to have safer communities today and a strong, skilled and independent workforce and stable economy in the future, our youths must be engaged in meaningful capability-building endeavours today.
The fishbone diagram technique helped surface that our constrained education system, accessibility to drugs & alcohol, and unstable families all contribute to the issue. It gave us a map of the environment where this challenge permeates, and guided us in identifying our potential partners for change.
The ensuing modules of finding ideas to act on, building and maintaining authorization, and designing the first iteration are all memorable in their own way. It was practice-oriented and geared towards execution. This particular phase required every team member to be aligned in understanding and spirit. We had a team retreat to foster oneness and build solidarity.
During the retreat, we created our first pilot project plan to set the direction, mark focal points and slot in space for iteration. As part of the plan, we will be mentoring 5 – 10 youths in Koki who are already engaged in income-generating activities and helping them to scale/pivot successfully. The entire journey will be problem-driven, with the youth empowered to take charge of design & execution, showing commitment and ownership.
As first steps, we met with Father (Fr.) Ambrose and Lucy Napitalai of Don Bosco Technical Institute Sabama, who are valuable agents in our change network. The meeting is a highlight for us. Fr. Ambrose and Lucy really brought to life the cause and subcauses we have mapped out on our fishbone diagram and gave us practical guidance on how to structure our pilot program. They are well-versed in youth development challenges, having done a lot of initiatives themselves. At the time of writing, we are progressing in phase 1 of the pilot project with 3 iterations done so far. We are strongly geared for change and remain committed.
The lessons from PDIA are equally powerful in other aspects of our life as well.
“I have used the PDIA approach in a recent work project to make improvements on reporting templates.” ~ Joshua
“In a recent meeting at work, we followed the team-check-in framework. What did you do? What did you learn? What will you do next? What are you struggling with?” ~ Keren
One important lesson for us all is that PDIA is only successful with a strong and reliable team. We started strong, then had many headwinds, but despite those, we still pushed through.
“ Putting a team together is just step one—getting everyone to work together smoothly is the real challenge! When our team first formed, I felt super optimistic about our potential. But as the weeks went by, I noticed how everyday responsibilities and personal stuff made it tough for everyone to stay focused. Our team energy gradually slowed down as a result. Despite these bumps in the road, we’ve stayed committed to finishing this course together!” ~ Joshua
Indeed, PDIA is challenging. What kept us grounded was our individual purpose in life blending into our group’s vision for youth economic empowerment. Work and family commitments really tested our commitment not only to the course work, but also to our team as well. In the end, we are grateful we pushed through and came out stronger than ever! The way we view and deal with problems will never be the same again.
From the bottom of our hearts, we would like to thank Matt Andrews and the Harvard Team, Barbara Thomas and the TVI Team, DFAT and all other major sponsors for making this opportunity possible. Special thanks to Marietou, Salimah, and Obeth for supporting us throughout this journey.
This blog was written by participants who completed a 12-week PDIA for PNG online learning program from August – November 2025. 44 participants successfully completed this program.