This article examines how vocational skills-based interventions shape resilience pathways among women and youth in climate-vulnerable regions of Zimbabwe, drawing on qualitative evidence from Matabeleland North and South. Using a phenomenological approach combined with resilience storytelling, the study analyses how participants mobilise skills, networks, and resources to respond to drought and Covid-19-related shocks. The findings show that vocational skills strengthen absorptive, adaptive, and transformative capacities in distinct ways. While skills enable coping and livelihood diversification, their ability to support sustained poverty reduction is uneven and shaped by structural constraints such as access to capital, labour markets, and gender norms. Youth were more likely to leverage skills for labour mobility and diversification, while women’s pathways were more locally anchored and shaped by collective organisation and care responsibilities. The study argues that vocational training contributes to resilience but requires supportive economic and institutional environments to enable inclusive and transformative outcomes.