Syrian Arab News Agency S A N A
Damascus, SANA – 48 youths have got the chance to turn from job seekers into entrepreneurs who manage their own small businesses. Those youths have been selected by the UNPFA-supported youth programme launched by the United Nations Population Fund (UNPFA)in cooperation with 21 civil associations in the provinces of Damascus and its Countryside, Tartous and Homs.
2015 was the beginning where 81 youths attended a 15-day training course under the supervision of specialists with the aim of providing them with critical business, leadership, innovation, management, communications, customer service, marketing and entrepreneurship skills and introducing them to accounting principles, marketing study, and professional ethics. At the end of the course, the participants presented projects to a panel of experts where the winning projects have been awarded financial grants to implement them on the ground.
In a statement to SANA, the UNFPA media and communication officer in Damascus, Kinda Katranji, said that 17 projects has been implemented in Damascus and its Countryside and 24 others are under construction in Homs and Tartous provinces, adding that the program aims at mobilizing capabilities of the youth and encouraging them to innovate and rely on themselves to start their own businesses.
She noted that some of the proposed projects were traditional such as sewing, tailoring, clothes designing, haircut and electronic maintenance, while others reflected the creativity of the applicants and included teaching computer programming in Arabic, designing video games and agricultural projects including flower and mushroom growing.
Leen Darwish, graduated with a computer science degree in Damascus, in partnership with Mohammed Sultan, a graduate of software engineering, has launched her new app and web-based platform, called Remmaz, to be the first of its kind that is designed to teach coding online through interactive courses.
In turn, Nour Turki al-Ali said that her project, the hair salon, helped her make money to meet the needs of her family after they were forced to flee the terrorist organizations’ brutality in Deir Ezzor.
R. Raslan / Ghossoun
