TrainingTVET&Scholarships project

In the Bugesera district of Rwanda, many young people who finish high school have great difficulty in finding decent employment. For many of them this means returning to their families of origin where they collaborate in agricultural activities of pure subsistence to guarantee at least the necessary food. Abandoning one’s dreams and narrowing the horizon of one’s future are often inevitable consequences.

Precisely to counter this situation, since 2017 Fondazione Marcegaglia has collaborated with the district in the TVET & Scholarships program, supporting young people from vulnerable families.

The students are offered courses in the technical and professional or university fields according to their inclinations to prepare them to fully express their potential in the world of work.

From 2017 to 2020, over 170 students benefited from this support and are already putting their acquired skills into practice, having found a professional outlet or having started their own business.

The secret of success is to accompany students in an extremely personalized way and also involving parents and the community with an educational pact.

It starts with a careful process of selection and orientation of the candidates to then provide the young beneficiaries not only with the payment of the course but also with any necessary teaching materials and transport costs to reach the school. For the more technical professions then, the support continues with an internship or with the purchase of the minimum equipment to set up on your own.

The local representatives personally follow the young people trying first to direct them towards the professional skills most requested by the market and then motivating them and verifying their attendance and performance.

Thanks to an important tourism development in the region, the professions most chosen by fellows are those related to hospitality and the culinary arts. There are also numerous choices of hairdressers, tailors, mechanics, electricians and video makers. In some cases, the choice falls on university level courses such as nursing, hospitality management, IT and logistics.

The project has already had important results and the young people are enthusiastic about this new opportunity that has been given to them, but the commitment of the Foundation does not stop there, starting from 2021 by also calling donors and companies together, the goal will be to train another 1,000 young people and create real vocational training centers in the area on the model of the didactic tailoring inaugurated in 2020 in Rilima. The goal is always the same, to ensure a high quality of training and to encourage a direct connection with the world of work.