Ayitic Goes Global: First Group of Haitian Women Trained in Digital Skills

31/10/2018

The first round of training in digital skills for Haitian women was successfully completed within the framework of Ayitic Goes Global, a project promoted by LACNIC and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC).

A group of 50 women between the ages of 18 and 29 with no prior training in Information Technology (ICT) participated in this first 13-week course organized by the Ayitic Goes Global training program.

Held in Port-au-Prince, the training seeks to create conditions that will improve access of young Haitian women to the digital employment market.

Each student received a tablet to access the course contents remotely and complete the tests and the final project on the learning platform.

Student approval rates for this first edition were high. Likewise, in a survey conducted after the course, participants stressed that the course was useful for finding a job and had helped them not lag behind in the use of technology, mainly as compared to men.

With the support of Alda Berardinelli, the project’s coordinator of employability, graduates will begin their search for employment opportunities through online platforms. The program is designed to offer these women workshops and practices, after which they will have access to individual follow-up. The survey and follow-up show that students prefer self-employment and value flexible working hours, learning opportunities and professional development.

Currently, the initiative’s local leaders are in the process of selecting 100 women to take part in the second edition of the training course.

Technical Course. Ayitic Goes Global also developed its first technical courses for 50 members of the Haitian technical community. A total of 25 people participated in the modules on Internet security, and another 25 completed the modules on network management. The goal of these efforts is to strengthen connectivity by creating digital capability among the technical community. The courses that have been developed will be available to the general public on LACNIC’s Online Campus, in Spanish, in 2019.

Ayitic Goes Global is an initiative of LACNIC and Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The program is being implemented with the support of the Caribbean Open Institute for the development of the courses, École Supérieure d’infotronique d’Haïti for the selection of the students and coordinating with program facilitators, and 3×3 Design for the monitoring and evaluation of the training project.