Digital Literacy Thailand Project #53261

Help disabled Thai with IT work-study program

by Family Connection Foundation

Help disabled Thai with IT work-study program

Project Report | Mar 25, 2022
Academy Plus Update #2

By Ric Poolman | Director, digiServe

Learning PC hardware during ITF course

Since our last update in November:

We created a fully self-paced course for IT Fundamentals that was launched in December. Over 20 students have taken the course so far. We also added two new courses. A Photoshop course in January and a programming Boot Camp in Dec and we repeated that course in early March.

Overall in 2021 we had 11 IT Fundamentals (ITF) Courses (Onsite – 7, Online Conference – 4) with 43 students. By the end of the year, we had recruited 3 new staff for our intern/on-the-job training programs. One (Mr Guy) was promoted to Apprentice last August and Mr Indy was promoted to Apprentice in February. Mr Prin will likely be promoted to Apprentice as well in about 1 month. Once they become an Apprentice, it means they have passed the basic programming skills courses and will be applying their skills to real apps as part of our Product Team. In this process, they learn professional skills in team work and development skills like testing and deploying software.

During this Covid era, we wanted to help people who lost thier jobs and were intested in transitioning to the IT industry. The ITF course allows the trainees to discover their own potential in IT, leading to an understanding of basic IT tasks such as building a computer, connecting devices (networking), writing websites and apps, and protecting computers from IT crimes and viruses. These may lead them to future work, whether it's working in an IT job that hasn't been done before, adjusting positions, raising salaries, or even transferring knowledge to others, especially family members.

As examples, Mr James and Mr Tony were unemployed due to Covid. Mr. James, after training in a ITF course with us, he later got a job in web development, worked for 2-3 months, was promoted to supervisor, received additional salary, supervising 3-4 people. After the ITF course, Mr Tony got a job in IT networking.

In addtion to helping people undertand IT, we are trying to recruit trainees that ultimately could help increase our capacity to help more Children's Homes with apps and IT training. The goal after their training is that they would have the skills and experience to go out and get a "real" job in the IT industry. The three trainees above are already adding capacity to our team. We had hoped to recruit at least 2 more ITF students to join this work-study program. However, we still need to fund the current trainees before we can recruit more.

Thank you for partnering with us. Please consider a giving a regular monthly gift to support our current trainees. New monthly supporters will have 1 month's gift matched by GlobalGiving.

First programming Boot Camp class

first Boot Camp receive certificates

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Nov 24, 2021
How you are helping children in Thailand - Report #1

By Ric Poolman | Director - digiServe

Mr Prin

Dear Partner,

Thank you so much for your gift during the launch of our GlobalGiving campaign to “Help unemployed Thai with IT work-study program”. Because of your generosity, we were able to recruit and bring on-board two new trainees. They had both been unemployed for over a year and we knew them from our IT Fundamentals course that they had attended previously. Mr Indy and Mr Prin have both been studying web programming since they joined us in October. They have also had the chance to help 3 different charity groups with free IT support. They were learning new skills while providing those groups with upgraded computers.

In addition:

In November, they studied the principles of personal finance in one of our Life Educations courses
The Academy IT Facilitator developed a self study online course to teach IT Fundamentals. The new trainees helped to test this course.
The Academy will pilot a programming boot camp in December that the trainees will help facilitate
Next month, they will start learning how to use and support our main web app product called Child at Risk System (CARS).
The Academy had it very first trainee, Mr Guy who started in April, to become our first Apprentice, and he joined our product development team and is already contributing to the development of CARS.

It was a very productive first two months for our Trainees. The mission of digiServe is to help other charity groups in Thailand use technology well. Charity groups face a dire need for IT resources that they could use to expand and enhance their work. And because there is a shortage for trained technologists in general in Thailand, we launched this work-study program to help people who have lost their jobs in one industry to get trained to be productive in the exploding IT industry. As they train and grow in skills, they are also helping other charities either directly through free training and IT support or they get more experience in programming. Through their programming then, they are helping children’s homes in Thailand improve their care for children by helping them to manage their information well.

I should have exciting news in our next report of the new children’s homes we will be working with, but we need the help of these Trainees in order to reach more children’s homes. Since they are receiving a monthly salary to train, we need monthly partners to sustain the program.

This Tuesday, Nov 30, is the international #GivingTuesday. If you are getting in a holiday mood, would you consider another gift or a recurring gift this Tuesday? Donations made to our project on this day will be eligible for matching funds for up to $2,500 per donor.

Thank you so much!

Mr Indy

Mr Guy

IT Support at FCF

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