Paul D Gerhard: “We are looking for people who can communicate in local languages of the workers.”
By Joseph Varghese
Staff Reporter
A new programme billed “Better Connections”, launched by ictQatar and supported by Reach Out To Asia (Rota) Sheikh Thani Bin Abdullah Foundation for Humanitarian Services (RAF), Microsoft and Msheireb Properties, aims to improve the lives of thousands of workers in the
country.
As part of the initiative, Rota has invited people above the age of 18 to work as volunteers.
Rota aims to recruit 140 volunteers who will be interacting with the workers to impart certain skills in three areas such as financial literacy, health and safety, and workers’ rights and duties.
Giving the details of the programme, Paul D Gerhard, ICT and Technology Specialist, ICT for Education at Rota, said that the applicants should be willing to work mostly on weekends and should have good communication skills and enough IT or ICT skills.
“We are looking for people who can communicate in local languages of the workers. We are looking forward to volunteers who are proficient in Hindi, Nepali, Bengali, Sinhala, Tamil, Urdu, Tagalog in addition to English. We also are in the lookout for some who can communicate in Vietnamese.”
“The volunteers may have to work up to 10 weekends. They will be given training and will have to set the training facilities for the workers. Each centre will have two volunteers. They will engage the workers for two days and then conduct the follow up work.”
“We will be training only 10% of the workers in each organisation. They will be selected by the mangers of each organisation. Once they are trained they will be called digital champions who, in turn, will train the other employees of the organisation. With this we expect to educate most of the workers in the near future,” he added.
The programme aims to provide all the basic skills that the workers need to have while they will be working in the country.
The training will provide necessary IT as well as ICT skills, how to make money transactions and the use of new techniques such as mobile money, tips for taking care of the health and healthy eating habits among others.
The workers will be briefed on their rights especially about the rules and regulations of the country and the duties that are expected from them.
The programme has already started and Rota has provided about 40 volunteers.
A session was held last week for the employees of Larsen and Toubro.
Those who are interested can visit the page http://www.reachouttoasia.org/en/better-connections-program and register as volunteers.
