Section One: Project Summary

This program is organized comprising the support of The EQUALS Digital Skills Project. In this ever-growing digital era and especially during unparalleled, challenging times like these, it is pivotal for the empowerment of women in the digital field of IT. Alongside developing and enhancing the knowledge and experience in various other sectors, it is a necessity to accelerate the digital literacy of women. In addition to generating strongly skilled, diligent women, it will also corroborate the overall economic growth and establishment of the country.

We are already in the execution phase of the project. Through this project, our primary objective is to cultivate the talents and eventually transform and empower women financially, of various backgrounds and experiences, with the knowledge and support in areas of information and technology. The course curriculum we offer, followed by highly skilled mentors will ensure that women will not only be benefited with significant skills, but also thrive and promote their achievements in the demanding world of technology.

In addition to the course certifications, we will also be supporting the students who will be passing the courses successfully by providing and ensuring corresponding jobs/clients for them from online platforms such as Fiverr, UpWork Inc., PeoplePerHour, Freelancer.com, etc. This way, not only will they be able to implement their skills and knowledge that they will have gained from this course, but also will be able to earn significantly through these platforms. We will also ensure that the students are also benefited from the E-commerce platform, where they can market and sell their products effectively.

Section Two: Activities and Progress 

Our classes are being conducted online through Zoom and registrations of new students are being conducted through our own platform Mashtor, as reported previously. Both students and mentors are following the routine we have provided. The students are making significant progress in each course as they have really good interactions with the mentors through interactive online sessions. Due to the on-going nationwide lockdown, practical classes are not being conducted as of yet. We hope to resume them soon once the government lifts such restrictions.

Now we are conducting 7 days of classes weekly. The student participation rate has significantly increased compared to previous batches. The latest ongoing batch of Graphic Design has 80+ students on average and for Web Design we had 50+ students. The rest of the courses have an attendance rate of 50+. Since we get a significantly large number of requests, approximately 1200+ students have registered for our courses. We firmly ensure that only the individuals who are truly interested and dedicated are guaranteed a chance to complete the course. Irregular participants are replaced by new, regular members. We are almost at the end part of this project, in August we discovered we have trained almost 600 students. It was possible because of online classes. Hope we will be able to complete some of the courses within next month. You will get updates on our website.

Section Three: Institutional & Project Partner Issues
N/A
Section Four: Outputs and Deliverables 

We have well trained mentors who try their best to provide with enough materials and resources during class time. And for future reference by mentors and students, we maintain cloud storage for storing recorded classes and course lectures, slides and other necessary resources. All resources are maintained and updated regularly.

We have planned for an online photography exhibition because we discovered some of our students have taken wonderful pictures.

An updated Google drive link has been attached for reference:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14tu7P9g6qOy9ndPY8xwA6HP4xc9KF 

Section Five: Outcomes and Lessons Learned

We are getting very good insight from our participants and the trainer group. Both parties are benefiting from the project. It is resulting to be very helpful for the participants during this pandemic and in addition to that, the students themselves are promoting the course to their friends and or colleagues to join the course. We are having an overflow of interested individuals, which is a really good sign and signifies that the course is getting good response.

As Bangladesh is in a lockdown state, access to many physical activities have been hampered. To be precise, it’s been more than a year that education institutes have been closed. Most people, especially young generation in their student phases are feeling hopeless and frustrated due the ongoing situation. This course is proving to be a very helpful initiative for such induvial, as it’s giving them a purpose and grounds to learn and keep track and flow of their studies. Although the target number of students have well exceeded, we are trying our best to accommodate as many students as possible to get enrolled in our courses so that they may be benefited from the training, which will be helpful for them in the near future.

Section Six: Evaluation

The project is going quite smoothly as per implementation plan. All our classes are conducted as per schedule on time and our mentors and students are quite sincere and punctual. The attendance rate is also very good, with each batch consisting of now approximately 50+ students. The duration of the courses are 1.5-2 hours, which is not too short and at the same time not too exhausting. Despite being conducted online, both mentors and students do not face communication problems. Even if loss of connection does occur, they can easily join back. And we do have backups of lectures in case students missing classes due to unavoidable circumstances.

Despite taking online classes during the pandemic, we are not facing any laggings or fallbacks. In fact, the online method of conducting the classes has proven to be a very good and convenient alternative during this pandemic. We prioritize the safety of all individuals involved in this project. The online sessions have proven to be very much convenient and favored by almost all participants, as they can do their classes from the safety and comforts of their home.

And our idea of utilizing E-commerce platform has actually been benefited from Covid-19, as most businesses, marketing and transactions has shifted online. Hence, when students will be promoting their products for marketing, they will have a significant chance of selling their items to online buyers. Most Bangladeshi women are currently involved in running their businesses through online social media platforms such as Facebook by creating their business pages. We are voluntarily encouraging them to take our courses so that they can be further benefited by the lessons they will be receiving from the course on how to promote their products/services effectively, boost advertisement, etc.

Section Seven: Dissemination
N/A
Section Eight: Risks, Issues and Challenges  

As of yet, no severe issues or risk factors were faced. Everything is being executed and delivered as per implementation plan.

Section Nine: Collaboration and Support

 So far, we are able to manage and handle the project without any issues. If needed, we will definitely brief you in the next monthly report.

Section Ten: Financial Report
Section Eleven: Next Steps