Employees of Google deliver digital skills training for young Tanzania

Employees of Google to deliver digital skills training for young Tanzanians

The volunteers will spend two weeks working alongside Raleigh Tanzania alumni in rural communities in the Morogoro region of Tanzania as well as those living in the town of Morogoro. The project will allow Googlers to be able to put their digital knowledge to use but they will also gain a deeper understanding of the barriers youth face in growing their businesses, alongside the challenges of reaching the scale necessary to provide sustainable livelihoods to many more young people.

Job creation and unemployment are major challenges for young people in Tanzania, particularly those in rural areas. Rural youth have poorer access to markets, infrastructure, finance, training and skills than their urban counterparts, and there are very few job prospects in local communities. In major urban centres, such as Dar es Salaam, the number of new start-ups has grown by an average of 33% every year since 2009, with young people the most likely to start a business. Despite this, many young Tanzanians lack the appropriate skills needed to grow their microenterprises. Crucially, digital literacy remains low.

In the targeted rural communities, the volunteers will provide essential follow-up business training and mentoring for 12 young entrepreneurs who have already completed Raleigh Tanzania’s livelihoods programme. They will also support entrepreneurs with access to finance and awareness-raising and help maximise the chances of their businesses generating increased and reliable incomes.

The volunteers will then deliver the Google Digital Skills for Africa curriculum to 12 urban youth from Morogoro who are running their own businesses or social enterprises. This will empower these would-be entrepreneurs to uncover new and effective means of utilising digital technology for business design and growth.

This project represents the latest stage of Raleigh’s exciting work with employees of Google to provide vital follow-up support to youth entrepreneurs in Tanzania, empowering them to grow safe and sustainable businesses. Since 2015, the support of Google EMEA employees has enabled Raleigh Tanzania to deliver some truly innovative work, including:

• In October 2016, 11 employees from Google provided follow-up training to 25 young graduates of previous Raleigh projects. 84% of entrepreneurs rated the programme as excellent, while the rest rated it as good.
• In July 2017, 24 Googlers worked alongside 16 Raleigh Tanzania alumni volunteers to provide additional training and support with a specific focus on finance and cash flow, marketing and communications, market research and scaling up. Google and alumni volunteers supported a total of 88 young entrepreneurs, 70 of which were graduates of Raleigh’s entrepreneurship programme. Entrepreneurs participating in the programme demonstrated a measurable improvement in overall knowledge on how to develop viable and successful enterprises.

Raleigh’s youth-led peer to peer approach to project design and behaviour change combined with Google’s expertise in innovation and technology creates a unique opportunity to make a real difference to the lives of many young entrepreneurs across Tanzania.

Through participating in this work with Raleigh Tanzania the Google volunteers will gain new skills and develop existing knowledge which will benefit them on their return to their roles. This includes experience of facilitating and collaborating in problem led design and innovation, experience participating in a genuine sustainable development programme, the opportunity to empower Tanzanian youth in shaping their own futures, development of their communication, team-work and leadership skills, and the opportunity to conduct behaviour centred formative research.

More updates on this exciting project will follow.