Core Competency: job skills for rural Thai youth

Project Report | Jun 23, 2022
A Period of Progress and Discovery

By Evelind Schecter | Program Leader

Marketing, Design, Barista

After 6 months, we concluded the first cycle of our Upskilling Program. Finn worked hard together with 20 graduates from Phrao and many of them have gone out to the cities to look for jobs.

We checked in with a couple of our graduates to find out how they have been doing and are glad to hear that many of them have been putting the skills learned to good use!

If you have read our previous project report, we covered Faa, who graduated from our higher education sponsorship program. She had a one-year contract with one of the sub-district offices in Phrao and enrolled herself in this Upskilling Program. Now that she has completed both of them, she is currently a jack of all trades in Chiang Mai! She is working as a barista, digital marketing manager, and digital designer at a cafe, and doing part-time work as well.

Faa shared that the Upskilling Program has helped her to be more assertive and confident when communicating using English in her workplace. She also really misses all her classmates.

Nat is not a graduate of Warm Heart but heard of this program and joined us. She’s working for Charoen Pokphand Foods under the Management Trainee Program. Her greatest takeaway has been presentation skills as she has to present her team’s performance to her CEO every month. Some other things she has learned include public speaking and script creation.

Our first batch of participants have graduated from our program, and we are in a phase of restructuring and reaching out to new prospective students. Finn is also working on a marketing campaign to promote and increase awareness of this project.

We are excited to see how this program will develop and look forward to nurturing more young talents!

Thank you for your enduring support!

Nat is ready to head out

Practicing Presentation Skills

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Feb 28, 2022
Evolve, Adapt, Layer and Tailor

By Evelind Schecter | Program Manager

Faa giving her presentation via Zoom

After a long wait (often 1-2 years), university students in Chiang Mai have been preparing for and attending their graduation ceremonies. The Thai university system requires a member of the royal family to distribute diplomas; with the death of the king a few years ago, and then COVID, most graduations have been on hold. An interim diploma could be issued for job applications, but the official document comes with this ceremony. Half our Upskills class are recent grads and they all spent the last month organizing and attending graduations

Finn has been working around the disruptions of schedule changes and building closures due to COVID spikes. Despite these restrictions, The first cohort completed the first quarter of the program, focused on basic English, The next section adds presentation and interviewing skills on top of the English. This has lent itself to some one-on-one and smaller sessions that he set up to keep the momentum.

Faa is one of the recent graduates that you may know from our higher education sponsorship. She graduated in the spring of 2020, into a COVID lockdown. She worked at a local cafe until she landed a one-year contract with one of the Phrao sub-district offices. One of the projects is an ongoing youth development program that sponsors an entrepreneurship program. She helped attract our first class of students and has been improving her own skills in English and job interviews. Her contract is up and she is using these new skills in her job search.

Looking forward, we are also in discussions with the District adult education, "Kosona", program to attract our next cohort of students. Da and Finn met with them earlier this month.

Our high school girls and a couple of university students working online from WH have also been able to take advantage of the program.

We continue to be grateful for the computers that our high school students can share for online classes and Finn's energy working with all the children.

Thank you for investing in our youth and making this all possible!

Faa's graduation (2 years wait)

Da presents at Kosona Teachers meeting

Our High School senior, Jiu, presenting via Zoom

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Oct 30, 2021
Launch and Adapt

By Evelind Schecter | Program Manager

Program orientation meeting

September brought the launch of our "Upskills Program" for local youth. We had collected informational and goal-setting surveys from 17 potential students, had them do an English pretest and a 15-minute conversational Zoom to assess language competency levels. The students were willing to commit to a year-long program with approximately 4 hours per week of study and a weekly check-in class with the English teacher. Monthly workshops would cover specific skill development areas. We were still coming to an agreement with our candidate to be the program manager, but we decided to get started as the students were ready to get going

Working with a nearby government sub-district (Kun Pak) program for youth development, our first orientation class was held in person at the Story Cafe run by the youth group. Our long-time staff member, Da, led the meeting with assistance from Co-founder, Evelind. The students ranged from high school to post-university - all worried about finding jobs. Even though the students had studied English in school, they all wanted to focus on English first, to build some confidence in speaking.

The first few months will focus on basic English, reviewing vocabulary, and orienting the students to appropriate meeting and greeting skills for interviews and customer service. Our teachers include the program manager, "Finn", who comes with an American GED and TEFL training. Having had to find his way in Thailand as a Burmese refugee, he brings first-hand knowledge of what is needed to build self-confidence and critical job skills. Our long-time employee, "Da", has added teaching English to her skill set and can ease the self-consciousness of her students who know her from the community.

Additional benefits have come from launching the program. Finn has been using the curriculum to teach our Warm Heart students English during their school break. Earn, a recent college graduate, networked with other recent grads and was hired into a part-time job working for the sub-district.

We are still listening and adjusting the class material as our teachers need to fill gaps in basic skills.

Thank you for making this possible!

Da explains the program and survey feedback

Finn and Da teach first in-person class

Students create sentences

Finn and volunteer teach our youngest English

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