Youth to acquire Essential ICT, Business SKills

Digital Opportunity Trust Rwanda DOT is slated to train 11,000 youth in essential ICT and Business Skills.

DOT will deploy a fourth team of 108 Interns who will reach out to over 11,000 youth and women in the next 9 months under the ReachUp! Program.

The DOT Interns are fresh graduates recruited from local universities and colleges then offered the opportunity to empower their communities.

Speaking at the Intern Learning Experience closing ceremony, on Friday August 31st 2012, the Head of the Human Capacity and Institutional Development Department at the Rwanda Development Board, Appollo Munanura, stated, “DOT is a unique organization because it is changing youth to go out and change others.”

He added, “These young people recruited as Interns are going to bring about social economic change in their communities, and in the process identify opportunities from themselves.”

“The interns have completed 3 weeks online learning experience and 10 days face to face where they have acquired skills in facilitation, coaching, project management, and advocacy.”

“Throughout this learning experience the Interns have demonstrated great commitment to be lifelong learners and develop practices related to that in order to become leaders in their communities,” noted Ndekezi Maarifa, DOT’s Regional Learning Coordinator.

The Intern Learning Experience (ILE) took place at the Kicukiro Integrated Polytechnic Regional Centre.

Interns were introduced to the ReachUp! curriculum and equipped with facilitation techniques and approaches that they can model when empowering their peers in their communities.

Violette Uwamutara, Country Director DOT Rwanda explains, “Technology is an asset to bridge the skills and information gap in developing communities.”

She adds that technology gives people easy access to information, a voice to reach others, facility to create solutions for their own challenges and serves as a bridge between communities, which would have otherwise not been able to connect.

Uwamutara said that DOT’s ReachUp! Program helps people adopt technology to their daily life needs and learn essential business skills.