Project equips youths with employability skills, offers on-the-job training

AMMAN — The Business Development Centre (BDC) on Tuesday launched the second phase of the Tariqi programme (my way), funded by Prince’s Trust International (PTI) and the King Abdullah II Fund for Development (KAFD). 

The Tariqi for Sectors Programme is an employability and on-the-job training programme developed from PTI’s “Get Into” programme and is being implemented in Amman for the retail and insurance sectors by the BDC, a local non-profit organisation that aims at contributing to economic development through supporting Jordanian enterprises.

 During the ceremony, BDC and the Jordan Insurance Federation signed an agreement under which the second initiative of Tariqi will entail training 100 university graduates to be employed at insurance companies. 

BDC CEO Nayef Stetieh and JIF President Ali Wazani signed the agreement. 

A video of two success stories produced by Aramram was played during the ceremony, showcasing the experience Saif Nihad, a 17-year-old secondary school student, and his blacksmith project supported by a BDC programme called “Sanad”. 

The video also highlighted the story of Doaa Alsayyed, a student of veterinary medicine at the Jordan University of Science and Technology who also was part of the Sanad programme, whose project “Friendship Bracelets” began when she was at school and then grew further when she became a university student. 

“This evening’s speeches have shown various ways in which that can be done, and I [would] absolutely like to join the congratulations to Saif and Doaa for the way in which they have done something which, if I could be direct, is not being done enough in either the UK or in Jordan, which is pioneering vocational personal education,” British Ambassador to Jordan Edward Oakden, who attended the ceremony, said.  

“I think both of our countries face a real challenge. How is that we can equip our young people to meet the competition that will be coming in the course of their lives, or already coming from... China or Brazil and all the fast growing economies around the world,” he said. 

Oakden added that “there is something like 80,000 engineers in the universities in Jordan... and if by any chance the Red-Dead Canal — the canal connecting the Red Sea with the Dead Sea — were to be built tomorrow, there will be no welders apart from Saif to make it, there are not enough welders in Jordan.”

Delivering the opening speech, Stetieh said the first phase of the Tariqi Programme focused on the retail sector and was conducted in partnership with the PTI.

Several graduates from the programme also delivered short speeches on their experience during the workshops in regard to content and teaching methods, which they said helped them gain real-life experience that prepared them to join the labour market. 

Caitlin Kennedy, director of programmes at PTI, said “PTI is a relatively young organisation building on 40 years of experience of Prince’s Trust in the UK, created by His Royal Highness Prince of Wales [Charles] in order to help tackle the unemployment and disengagement of young people in the UK.”

She added that several programmes which have been running for 10 years in the UK were translated into Tariqi in Jordan, coming from “the insight of the need to prepare young people” for professional life.

Kennedy also said that Jordan is the first country in the Middle East where PTI has implemented the Tariqi pilot project, working with BDC and KAFD. 

At the end of the ceremony, private sector companies and banks supporting the programme were honoured and the 26 graduates from the Tariqi for Retail pilot project received their certificates.