By Kai Pflug
Online education is currently more or less the only way for some young Afghans to learn new skills, given the restrictions on education in the country. While many young Afghans learn from YouTube, as an alternative, we have established the StayIN International Training Center (SITC). As Muneera already explained in a recent post, the SITC offers a range of skill-oriented training programs for young Afghans.
Key drivers of the SITC are a few highly dedicated young women who are members of StayIN Afghanistan. They came up with the idea of the SITC and are in charge of identifying relevant topics for the SITC classes. They also manage the local organization of the courses – announcing them, inviting participants, and moderating the Q&A sessions which are an important part of the courses.
The topics of the SITC workshops can broadly be grouped into 3 categories:
Life Skills: This includes topics as diverse as Dealing with Depression, Time Management, Critical Thinking, Decision Making, Communication Skills, Teamwork, Writing Articles, Self Confidence, Conflict Resolution, and Creative Thinking.
Business Skills: here, we offer courses in topics such as Business Proposal Writing, Developing a Business Plan, CV Writing, Basic Accounting, Statistics, Presentation Skills, Marketing, Leadership Skills, Entrepreneurship, Selling Skills, Project Management, and Risk Management.
IT Skills: This covers topics such as Microsoft Office Skills, Web Design, UNIX, Cybersecurity, Python, and SQL servers.
We may adapt and extend the range of topics in the future depending on local needs and the availability of suitable trainers.
The target group of our workshops in 2024 are young Afghans (aged around 18 to 30, though this is not a very strict limit) with at least an intermediate knowledge of English. While our main target group is young Afghan women (as their educational opportunities are particularly restricted), we will not exclude male participants as our female Afghan members felt that this would be unfair – an indication of how generous they are, though this is obvious from their engagement at the SITC anyway.
The basic format of all workshops is Zoom calls – those conducted so far (on Business Plan Writing and CV Writing) each took about 45 minutes followed by a Q&A session of about 15 minutes. The classes are conducted in English and accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation that covers the key points and is distributed to the participants after the workshop. Our initial target is to have at least one workshop per month, though hopefully this can be extended later on.
Our trainers are mostly based outside of Afghanistan. They must obviously have good knowledge and experience in the area their class covers, and be willing to develop a suitable presentation and deliver the training – all without any kind of reimbursement. Fortunately, that does not seem to deter quite as many people as one might think.
Foreign volunteer trainers play a vital role in the success of the program. In particular, they bring expertise in their chosen topics that may not be available within Afghanistan. As they work as volunteers, the program can be implemented at a very low cost. In addition, they create a link between young Afghans and the world and motivate participants due to their greater experience and knowledge.
If you are interested in supporting the SITC as a trainer, please contact us. We are also interested in topics not listed above – anything that can help young Afghans improve their skills is relevant.
Originally posted 2024-03-16 18:07:56.
