The Institute for Youth Initiatives and Innovations (IYII) has completed the fifth cycle of a series of digital skills trainings
At the end of August 2020, the Institute completed the 5th Digital Bootcamp for NEETs in Bulgaria. Each Bootcamp consists of 200-hours of intensive training class with strong focus on further development of ICT hard skills, including soft skills training such as entrepreneurship and English language course. The training courses are organized under the project “European Digital Bootcamps (EDIBO)”, benefits from Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway through the EEA and Norway Grants Fund for Youth Employment. EDIBO addresses the dramatic problem of youth unemployment and seeks to promote the training and employment of young people up to the age of 29, and to respond to strong demand for information and communication technology staff.
Based on national features of low-skilled and unemployed young people and specific requirements on the national ICT market, IYII as national partner for Bulgaria, drew up a training bootcamp program to suit those NEETs and businesses. The main training modules include the following digital and entrepreneurship skills: Basic computer skills – Windows, Browsers – Chrome, FireFox and Opera, Installing and removing programs; Open Office; Drivers and support; Network settings; Periphery and possible problems; Basic programs in the daily life of the entrepreneur; Organization of the entrepreneur’s work with the help of a computer; Electronic interaction with institutions; Digital entrepreneurship and social networks, etc. Specialized modules such as Lightroom CC were included in some of the trainings.
Since the launch of EDIBO Digital Bootcamps in Bulgaria until now, 128 unemployed and low-skilled young people from all over the country have participated in the trainings. All of them received an EDIBO certificate for the acquired knowledge and skills. Due to the pandemic situation in Europe, two of the trainings were conducted online, and the rest were on-place in the cities of Plovdiv, Dobrich and Ignatievo. 65% of the trained young people are women, most of them live in the small settlements around the places where the trainings were organized. In general, the young people who participated in the training courses have different social standard, digital skills, levels of education (a little over half of them have completed primary or secondary education, and the rest – completed higher education) and language skills (less than 25% have a basic level of English). Despite the summer months and the Covid-situation, the young people attended daily and filled the training rooms. The final one EDIBO Bootcamp is coming soon!
