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Article

14 Jan 2018

Author:
Rana Freifer, Wamda (UAE)

Teaching coding to young refugees will generate job opportunities to thousands

“Teaching refugees to code empowers everyone in the community...Including IT education in education programs for refugees equips thousands of young refugees with highly job-relevant skills for future employability and self-sufficiency,” Houssam Chahin, regional private sector partnerships manager for MENA at UNHCR told Wamda. By setting up and multiplying coding workshops and bootcamps for young people (aged 8 – 24) predominantly inside refugee camps, UNHCR’s Refugee Code Week is sustaining tangible and job relevant education interventions across the EMEA region...SAP, a market leader in enterprise application software, partnered with UNHCR and members of the civil society to implement the Refugee Code Week initiative. SAP held coding workshops for over 10,000 refugees in the region. Refugee Code Week focused on education as one of the options for self-sufficiency and future employability. On a more practical level, SAP’s Husseini explained that the most promising master class students have the opportunity to join a 16-week-long coding bootcamp, where they would emerge as top entry level computer engineers ready for employment locally, regionally, and internationally. “To date, more than 75 participants have found employment, with an average salary of $1,100 per month... 

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