Today, Huawei held a graduation event for the 30 underprivileged children that went through the Digital Skills for Life Program. The one month long course was a joint effort between the ICT Authority, eMentoring Africa and Huawei, the third largest phone manufacturer in the world.
The initiative had the main objective of equipping disadvantaged youth with the fundamental ICT skills. The 30 boys and girls were taken through career guidance and confidence building skills by eMentoring Africa and IIHT came in to teach the assembly and dis-assembly of computers, development of professional presentations, making of spreadsheets and creating documents. Moreover, Internet skills and networking was taught to help the graduates get jobs online through the Ajira Digital initiative.
The Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of ICT, Hon. Joe Mucheru said that the government plans to directly support 2 million youth to obtain ICT skills and get jobs online before the end of this year. Through the partnership between the Kenya Private Sector Alliance and the Rockfeller foundation, thousands of Kenyans have already gone through training.
Chinese Ambassador to Kenya, H.E Dr. Liu Xianfa said that the relationship between the two countries has led to programs such as the Digital Skills for Life course. He emphasized that China has become the largest foreign investor in Kenya and more beneficial initiatives like this ones are bound to come in the near future.
The CEO of Huawei was also in attendance. He congratulated the graduates and insisted that if Kenya wants to live up to its name as the Silicon Savannah, it will need to build a skilled workforce through such programs.
