Long-term Resilience Building in Dominica

Work Online Dominica (WOD) is an initiative by the Government of Dominica’s Ministry of Public Works and The Digital Economy, in collaboration with IsraAID, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Dominica State College.

The aim of the initiative was to equip 60 professionals with the tools and resources necessary to leverage their skills and experience to access online freelance opportunities, over the course of 12 weeks.

After the implementation of two Cohorts, WOD continues to engage professionals between the ages of 18 to 45 years, with extra emphasis on graduates from Dominica State College, people from the Kalinago Territory, and any other vulnerable subpopulations, who have access to reliable internet and a computer, and can commit a minimum of 20 hours’ participation per week.

This third Cohort integrates the lessons learned from the previous 2 cohorts, to make sure that the inputs of previous participants, best practices, and areas for improvement are considered.

As per the project outcome for Work Online Dominica Cohort 3 program, selected participants will be engaged in training sessions that will enable them to gain knowledge, tools, resources, and skills to access online freelance employment opportunities.

Throughout this past month, all selected participants were provided with technical and motivational support, through coaching sessions and individual one-on-one coaching calls. To date, there have been a total of six modules implemented, keeping within the implementation timeframe. Participants were also provided with video modules that were used as information for the completion of their weekly assignments.

To ensure that all participants attended the calls, and completed assignments and modules, a Monitoring and Evaluation sheet was created and is regularly updated by the Digital Skills Specialists as a means of capturing participants' attendance and completion of the various modules.