By Edith Okupa | Executive Director
January 21, 2021
Dear Partner,
As always, we are grateful for your support towards our Restoration Project Resource Center. Because of your partnership and support, despite the impacts of the pandemic, we were able to continue to provide services.
We would be remised to say that the pandemic did not affect delivery of our services. But your support enabled us devise alternative ways of reaching our constituents. Instead of in-person classes, we resorted to online. So all our classes were delivered via ZOOM. At first, it looked far-reaching and impossible, especially with the computer hardware/software and internet requirements. Although a lot of program participants could not take the classes, but we had a sizeable number that completed classes in Computer/Microsoft Office, Financial Literacy, Data Entry, Coding (Python), and Business Coaching (ongoing). A total of 24 program participants graduated in December of 2020. Of these, 4 people took part in our paid internship program where they were given opportunity to increase their speed in data entry, work in an actual office setting and learn more about corporate work. After one month of internship, each of them received a $200 stipend from us as an incentive for completion of the data entry class and the internship. One of the interns was hired by our corporate partners after the completion of the internship. We also had a virtual graduation ceremony to celebrate our program graduates. Some of our board members, all classes instructors and some of the program graduates were in attendance. It was an emotional even, hearing the graduates express their satisfaction about the classes and their gratitude for being given the opportunity to learn even in these precarious times.
We are excited to share some comments of graduates. We would attached a screen shot graduation attendees if they did not have their names on it. However, some comments from end of class surveys:
When asked to state 3 things that you liked most about the class and why?
(1) “the way they help for people for better job and opportunity”,
(2) “it is free and they teach u a lot about coding and python”, and
(3) “the way of teaching and the environment was comfortable”
When asked: Do you have any comments/suggestion to help improve this class?
“Everything was perfect and good but the class was short. It is better if we continue the class”.
As is our tradition, we take these suggestions seriously. We are planning to increase the duration of our classes, and or have them in two or three parts. This will require more funding. We hope that when the time comes, we can count on you, our partner, for that additional support.
Remember, there is power in numbers! Your support helps our community who is already disenfranchised and lacks the ability to compete with other members of society for the limited economic resources, which is made even more difficult to reach because of the COVID-19 pandemic, build the courage to compete keenly for economic resources.
The value of the skills we impact is far-reaching. Lives of girls and women are being changed. Although, the number may be a fraction of those that need help, but we believe that one girl/women at a time is enough to reach the entire community. When we lift-up one, she lifts-up another, and so on, we would reach many. Please help us make a difference in these lives!
Help share our work on your social media platforms, and support our Project at:
https://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/pe/project-edit/edit-page-1.html?project.projId=31361
Like us on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/restorationpi/
Twitter at: https://twitter.com/restorproject
THANK YOU for your support. For questions, contact me at eookupa@restorationpi.org.
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