How we help the community? The first Post-COVID edition: MEET the students!

OpenMindProjects is getting back on track by organizing both old and new projects, as we have previously discussed in our blogs. Helping students from the school for disabled students improve their skills, focusing on IT and English, is currently one of our biggest projects. The main goal? Helping them get ready for (online) jobs!

Our online and in-person volunteers have planned daily sessions to instruct them in everything they know about these subjects during the past few weeks. This sounds good, but what exactly does it mean? In this blog, we will tell you more about everything the students have done and experienced over the last few weeks. And who better to explain this to you than the students themselves?

What have they learned?

The students say that their knowledge and proficiency in English have improved. They told us that in addition to writing, their speaking abilities in English have also advanced. Some of them even mention that speaking in front of a group and interacting with foreigners (our volunteers) has given them more confidence!

Regarding the IT-related topics, the students have gained more knowledge on programming and coding through the program “Scratch”. As one student mentions:

“We learned more about computer skills, and even though it is difficult, it can be done”.

Regarding jobs

The skills that the students learned did also serve a specific goal: preparing them for (online) jobs. It was therefore important to know what they have learned about this. The students who participated in the interviews agreed that they had gained more knowledge about the various online career opportunities. Additionally, they noted that their ability to think more clearly and that they had learnt more job-related language.

Future jobs

We finished up by asking the students what they hoped to accomplish in the future: “what would you like to do?” In fact, a lot of them answered that they wanted to work in IT! Jobs that popped up included being an entrepreneur, working in a help desk, teaching, traveling overseas, and even programming websites!

Helping the students

It’s wonderful to see how the volunteers equipped the students with the skills that are currently in high demand to assist them getting ready for the future. They always learn new things, but we also noticed during the interviews that they have a good amount of enthusiasm for the online jobs.

We will resume our program after the holidays; both the students and we are eager to get started again!

Do you want to know more about the project? Through this blog and the video interviews we conducted, we will keep you updated!