Core Competency: job skills for rural Thai youth

September brought the launch of our "Upskills Program" for local youth. We had collected informational and goal-setting surveys from 17 potential students, had them do an English pretest and a 15-minute conversational Zoom to assess language competency levels. The students were willing to commit to a year-long program with approximately 4 hours per week of study and a weekly check-in class with the English teacher.  Monthly workshops would cover specific skill development areas. We were still coming to an agreement with our candidate to be the program manager, but we decided to get started as the students were ready to get going

Working with a nearby government sub-district (Kun Pak) program for youth development, our first orientation class was held in person at the Story Cafe run by the youth group. Our long-time staff member, Da, led the meeting with assistance from Co-founder, Evelind.  The students ranged from high school to post-university - all worried about finding jobs.  Even though the students had studied English in school, they all wanted to focus on English first, to build some confidence in speaking. 

The first few months will focus on basic English, reviewing vocabulary, and orienting the students to appropriate meeting and greeting skills for interviews and customer service. Our teachers include the program manager, "Finn", who comes with an American GED and TEFL training. Having had to find his way in Thailand as a Burmese refugee, he brings first-hand knowledge of what is needed to build self-confidence and critical job skills. Our long-time employee, "Da", has added teaching English to her skill set and can ease the self-consciousness of her students who know her from the community.

Additional benefits have come from launching the program.  Finn has been using the curriculum to teach our Warm Heart students English during their school break.  Earn, a recent college graduate, networked with other recent grads and was hired into a part-time job working for the sub-district.  

We are still listening and adjusting the class material as our teachers need to fill gaps in basic skills.  

Thank you for making this possible!

Our staff and remote volunteers are setting up the computers, surveying our target youth audience, settling the English and soft skills curriculum.  The first set of computers has been delivered and the network is in place. All moving us closer to a start date, despite COVID spikes that have closed most venues for gathering, caused school delays, and require online classes. (The computers were put to good use when we had another unexpected school shut down and all the high school students need to report in and study online.)

Meanwhile, the economy continues to slow down with no major vaccine program underway.  In our rural area, there are fewer cases, but whole villages close their gates when the threat level goes up. 

This has slowed the access to candidates to do focus groups and recruitment.  So we are looking for additional paths to our target students.  Only one subdistrict, out of 11, in our Phrao District has a program to teach small business entrepreneurship to young people out of school.   We recently met the mentor for the program through one of our college graduates, Faa, who landed a year contract as a program manager and assists with mentoring.  Their mentees fit the profile of students we are surveying to refine our program.   

The first round of surveys gives us a good range of jobs that students aspire to. It will also give us some ways to overcome the hesitancy of these students to commit and engage with an organization that has foreigners.  Our Thai staff know the communities and are helping to adapt the program.  They are reaching out to engage some of the youth in helping us to set the program.

We thank you for supporting this crucial program.  It has had to pivot and adjust as COVID throws us curves, but we are getting close and excited to get started.

Evelind, Michael, and Dana