An economic crisis, popular anger, the Corona pandemic, a general closure, the port explosion, the civil peace security crisis, and many other challenges that have affected Lebanon during the past two years, which made Techfugees determined to challenge all these obstacles and intensify its efforts and the efforts of its volunteers in Lebanon to confront these challenges. Positively, by empowering the refugee youth in Lebanon, who are the most affected segment, and creating job opportunities for them from a distance.
Techfugees has not hesitated to provide assistance and advice to refugee youth in Lebanon and to empower them technically since the start of its activities in Lebanon in 2019, through the actions of our volunteer Chapter in between Bekaa, Beirut and Tripoli. But 2020 wasn’t like any other year before: remote work became more common practice all over the world, which was an opportunity for Lebanon’s volunteers to intensify their efforts in search of empowering solutions for refugees in Lebanon. 2021 started with a clear action plan to train and upskill refugee youth in the digital sector, raising the level of their expertise and linking them to the remote labor market.
In March 2021, we partnered with Humans in the Loop, to train 25 refugees in data disaggregation and classification. That led to securing job opportunities for more than 20 refugees in the following months. The collaboration continues to find regular paid missions for the pool of trained annotators across the country. Payments onsite were done through our partnership with Anera, another NGO working with refugees
In September, Techfugees Lebanon also started the Digital Spark Program. Out of 100 fully funded scholarships for digital certificates provided by Google, 40 were distributed in Lebanon, with the following specializations:
- Data Analytics
- Project management
- UX design
- IT support.
And it doesn’t stop there ! In order to address the lack of employment opportunities faced by refugees in Lebanon and offer a concrete answer to the Canadian tech talent shortage, Techfugees is launching its “Digital Corridor” program to facilitate access to digital work for forcibly displaced persons in Lebanon and create a bridge to Canada for technically skilled refugees.
The program will be started by the Job Readiness Springboard, a 3 months training program to facilitate the remote independence of refugee youth in Lebanon to work remotely. It will include intensive on-and-offline workshops in each of the following areas:
- English language;
- Soft skills;
- Data Labelling and
- Basic and advanced IT skills;
- Information on remote work;
A coalition of partners joined the efforts like Anera, Na’amal as educational content partners, but also local associations who will be hosting the training sessions in multiple countries.
There are more surprises awaiting applicants regarding job opportunities.
Nowar Rahmouni
Communications Coordinator at Techfugees Lebanon.