By Shari O Raji | Program Manager
Our Employment Accelerator program is a platform in SMART Liberia’s Changemakers Village that aims to create a local workforce for the emerging Liberian economy. This program resulted from a survey we conducted with a selected group of local companies through which we found that these companies are reluctant to hire local graduates because they generally lack computer literacy, the ability to use productivity tools such as Google Suite and MS Office, etc. As such, through tailored training in entrepreneurship and leadership, computer literacy, and exposure to productivity tools such as google suite, asana, slack, etc, we are developing a pipeline of young people who have the technical, social, and critical thinking skills for a changing local/global economy. After the two-months training is completed, we will match them with job opportunities through an online job portal.
The amount of US$5,421.00 was raised for this project, “Job Training and Placement for 10,000 Liberian Youth” from 61 donors during GlobalGiving March Accelerator. The fund was disbursed in the month of July, and to date, we are initiating the cost for which this fund was raised. Many thanks to our donors and our GlobalGiving family; we are extremely grateful.
Currently, our team has completed the recruitment process for our first cohort of students. It was done through a rigorous and competitive online application process, that sought to recruit candidates with the grit, passion, and vision to add value to hiring companies. The students have gotten familiar with our workspace through our orientation and acquaintance week. During that week, we introduced them to the changemakers village, members of our staff, and the work that we do.
The computers needed to implement the training were purchased and our training space is 100% completed, trainings with invaluable skills needed to thrive in the workforce are ongoing. The beta version of our online portal which will connect graduates from the Employment Accelerator to jobs is ready and being tested by members of our team. We are also excited about partnerships with companies and institutions that are interested in working with us to develop our students and subsequently hire them (International Bank Liberia Limited, ActionAid Liberia, Naresh Brothers Incorporated, etc). The program continues to work on forging more partnerships with organizations that will hire our trained fellows. Through this process, we believe that we can help companies solve the hiring problems while sustainably tackling the unemployment crisis in Liberia. The donations received from you is invaluable in the work we are doing to lower the unemployment rate in Liberia. Thanks for your generosity.
Links:
Project reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
If you donate to this project or have donated to this project, you can receive an email when this project posts a report. You can also subscribe for reports without donating.
