Youth In Technology For Community Development

Youth In Technology For Community

Development

YLDFVision & Mission

04/12/235 International Arab Conference on Information Technology 15-17 December 2009

Youth Leadership Development Foundation

Vision:A Yemen in which skilled, well qualified and active young women and men play leadership roles in all domains of society enabling Yemenis to contribute to a better world.

Mission:To increase youth participation in social , political and economic aspects of society especially through education in vocational , communication, leadership and life skills in response to the needs of the community and the labor market locally , regionally and internationally.

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YLDF Centers: Girls World Communication Center (GWCC).

Youth & Human Rights

Antelaq Project

Youth Leadership Program


YLDF Centers: Youth Economic Development Center (YEDC)

Khadeja program

Youth Civic Engagement

English & Computer

Problem & Justification.


Most of young Yemeni ICTs:

1. lack self confidence of their ability to effectively exploit professional IT tools and applications;

2. do not know how to market their IT skills and ideas.

3. face competition from big and international ICT companies;

4. do not have market experience that is required by most employers. Therefore, they don’t easily get the opportunity to prove their abilities in the marketplace.


Gender Concerns

1. lack of on-the-job training

2. lack of job placement associations

3. lack of suitable environment for women4. low level of trust by employers’ in women's ability to

perform technical work

5. lack of women role models in the IT market


Yemeni NGOs:

The delay of the adoption of ICT by NGOs could be due to the following reasons:

1. NGOs don’t realize the impact of ICT on their day to day work activities;

2. NGOs don’t have the capacity to deal with new technology tools;

3. NGOs don’t have the funding required to purchase tools from international vendors;

4. NGOs don’t have sufficient trust in young Yemeni IT professionals to develop and implement the required tools for their operations.


How to Contribute in Solving the Problem!?


Youth In Technology for Community Development (YIT)

In partnership between Youth Leadership Development Foundation

& International Development Research Center


Overall Objective:

To enhance the utilization of ICT in development in Yemen through IT graduates

and NGOs.


Project Phases

Research Phase Training Phase. Internship Phase.


This research project aimed to answer the following research questions :

What are the disparities between university ICT education and job market needs, and what can be done to address these disparities?

How relevant education on ICT can improve employability of university graduates?

What hinders the participation of female ICT graduates in the Yemeni job market in Yemen, and how ICTs can increase this participation?

How ICTs can enhance the effectiveness of working processes in local community organisations in Yemen?

Research Main findings


ICT majors in Yemen

ICT majors through 4-5 years programs in the university of Sana'a and graduates are granted BSc in ICT in the |Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Automated Computer and Information System

ICT majors in 4 years programs in private universities: Science and technology, Saba, and others where graduates get BSc in ICT.

ICT majors in the Community College with two qualifications; a three-year diploma program and a four-year Bachelor program. Graduated go to the labor market as ICT specialists.


ICT labor market

There is no a follow up or trace system to assess the adequacy and effectiveness of its ICT programs in job creation.

Government civil service cannot absorb all the graduates and there are not any solid strategies to activate the role of the private sector to help resolve this issue.

Lack of ICT marketing policies and the lack of a labor market information system within Human resources and employment offices.


ICT labor market

There is an information gap between labor market demands and strategic vision of ITC education and training.

“Private institute are in a better situation than the academic educational institutions as they provide learning and training opportunities that fill part of the gap due to its administration flexibility “


ICT labor market

Fresh graduates expressed their essential need to get focused training on specific skills in ICT combined with some none-technical human development skills and English language.


ICT labor market

Lack of professionalism in terms of skills such as being knowledgeable of their field, updated, possessing other non-technical skills such as management skills and personal skills was highly indicated by many employers as one of the biggest frustration faced with Yemeni ICT employees.


Gender Concerns:

ICT female employees were found to prefer isolated work environment in offices. Most ICT places are gender unfriendly (mixed environment).

Social & Cultural Constraints


Civil society and ICT in Yemen

NGOs utilization of ICT skills depends on:- Nature and characteristics of its management leadership - To what extent do they believe in ICT benefits.

It is negatively affected by the poor ICT infrastructure in most of the NGOs, high cost of ICT services in Yemen, availability of low-cost ICT cadre with good English language skills.


Existing Gaps

The main gap is the high rate of unemployment in the Yemeni labor market exacerbated by poor supply of ICT skilled people and weak demands for ICT specialists.

Main concluded reasons behind the gap from the research respondents:


Existing Gaps

Shortage of availability of medium to highly skilled ICT personnel in the Yemeni market.

Lack of focused ICT specializations in many ICT majors

Old and un-updated courses in the academic sphere that grants a first degree qualifications is a common problem

Weak capacity of fresh graduates to compete in a competitive market

The need to unify and standardize the different certificates granted for different training programs provided by private institutes and NGOs


Bridging the Gaps: What is needed to be provided in terms of extra training to bridge the skill gaps?

Most of the respondents a asserted on the necessity to combine ICT specialized skills that focus on real application and soft skills component that include management, leader ship skills, report writing, etc.

Create Pilot projects like Youth in Technology for Community Development that could help the poor situation of the ICT graduates

YIT Research Conclusion :



Graduates exist in the market but not necessary in the specialized ITC jobs.

Many employers emphasized the importance of possessing soft skills such as communication skills, in addition to specialized ICT skills.

Women's accessibility to ICT services is quiet and are also perceived by many families to be socially unacceptable environment for their girls.

ICT Training programs for women are in more general type.



Cost of ICT services, poor infrastructure, unawareness of how to utilize ICT in business, and low of ICT investment.

ICT is still seen to be a luxury thing and a fashion trend for many sectors including business sector.

A new approach to the role of human resources and employment offices in both the government sector and the private sector is necessary



Severe shortage of well-trained and specialized ICT professionals, weak and quite poor infrastructure an inadequate investment in ICT will hinder in development of ICT in Yemen.

Coordination must be done among urban based NGOs, technical and vocational training institutes (governmental) and private institutes.

Recommendations of further research

projects


Recommendations of further research projects

Further investigation in the form of a tracer assessment.

The impact and quality of the various scattered efforts in ICT trainings and projects in Yemen need to be assessed to coordinate these efforts and enhance its effectiveness and coverage (rural- urban & gender balance).


YIT II Phase: Training

The program Targeted 60 ICT graduates ( 30 males and 30 females)

Three packages will be provided: Database Programming. Maintenance & Networks. Website Design.


YIT Phase III: Internship in NGOs.

Trainees benefits: - Application of the graduation projects, skills

and lessons learned during the trainings - Learn the importance of contributing to the

community NGOs benefit: - Involve the ICT in NGOs work through the

application of the trainees graduation projects - Get introduced to the ICT in their work


YIT Website: www.yit.yldf.org

Thank You

Youth In Technology For Community Development

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