DigiServe - Tech solutions for the most vulnerable

Last June we reported on our new apprentices who are learning to do web development as part of a 18 month training program. We discovered these guys from our week-long IT Fundamentals classes. Since then, we have had several more classes and are currently holding more at YardFon which is a government run foundation for training disabled people. We are hoping from these classes that we will discover 1-2 more long-term trainees. 

In addition to ITF classes, we worked with the Care Corner children's home to teach their students lessons on Microsoft Office tools. We taught Powerpoint in July and Excel in August-September. 

We launched our Child at Risk database system in two more children's homes and trained their staff. 

We are also currently involved in three main app development projects including replacing older apps in a counseling center, a medical clinc and our own Family Connection Foundation. Work continues on our Family Stengthening project as well. 

With a new Director and Technical Project Manager in place, this team has more capacity and is able to serve more organizations.  We seek to help organizations serving the most vunlerable in Thailand by providing IT expertise through apps, training, and support. Whether they are in an emotional crisis, a medical crisis, a disabled person looking for a job, a child in a group home, or lack knowledge, skills, and tools, we can help these vulnerable people by helping their organizations. 

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Thank you!

Dear Friends, 

This year, one of our most important goals is to recruit 3-5 disabled adults as apprentices who would join us for 18 months of training in partnership with another FCF project called Stronger Together. To fulfill this goal, we have held three IT Fundamentals (ITF) classes with 5-6 disabled participants each since December. Our ITF classes are designed to introduce IT to unemployed adults who do not have an IT background. We do this in order to encourage people to consider joining the growing IT industry in Thailand. The ITF class consists of five different IT subjects including hardware, networking, internet, programming, and security. When the class is over, we evaluate the students and invite those we think would benefit from further training to our Programming Boot Camp (PBC). This week-long program introduces the basics of web application development. From the disabled participants who attended our ITF classes this year, we selected five to attend our PBC. Out of the five participants, we have selected three to be our new apprentices. 

One of the benefits and challenges of this program is our partnership with a government Foundation called The Center for Development of Potential and Occupational Skills for the Disabled (Yardfon Center). They have about 70 disabled adults living and training at their compound in Mae Taeng (1 hour north of Chiang Mai). They are preparing them with working skills and teaching them to live independently. This includes an IT training program that teaches basic office application skills. Those were some of the students for which we had a chance to provide further training. Since the students live there, we were able to use their computer labs to do our training. This all worked out very well. The main challenge came when we selected our apprentices and realized they would have to relocate near our office. We had prepared our office for training disabled adults but could not accommodate their living arrangements. This led us to our third partnership with McKean Senior Center. They have small houses for two people that are accessible for people with disabilities. They can also provide transportation and other facilities as needed. Everything we needed came together to help us recruit the apprentices and provide them with the resources they need to become IT professionals. 

The three new apprentices started studying HTML, CSS and JS programming in May. The three apprentices include:

• Mr. K: "I am very happy to have the opportunity to intern in programming with DigiServe. Everyone here has been very welcoming and helpful."
• Mr. B: "I am extremely happy to be a part of DigiServe. It has been a significant opportunity in my life."
• Mr. P: "I would like to express my gratitude to Stronger Together and DigiServe for giving me the opportunity to be trained and to develop programming skills."

Finally, let me introduce two other special people. Mr Jantarat is our new DigiServe director. He was formerly our Academy Manager who oversaw our training. Now he will oversee everything including training, app development and client support services. 

In addition, we welcomed a new Technical Project Manager (app development) named Mr. Jindatham. "I'm glad to join the team, and thank you for allowing me to be a part of this organization."

Thank you for your partnership in what we are doing. Your gifts are making a difference to change the lives of these apprentices and the others who attend our classes and the clients who use our apps.