INJAZ

A couple of years ago students at the Queen Zein Al Sharaf School in Jordan were overjoyed to see Queen Rania Al-Abdullah teaching their iNJAZ class.

Queen Rania volunteers at INJAZ class

INJAZ’s Objectives are :
* Raise awareness of Jordanian youth on their personal and professional capabilities and potentials
* Enhance the capacities and competitive advantage of Jordanian youth to enable them to enter the job market as qualified employees and business owners
* Help equip the Jordanian educational and youth development system to better answer the needs of youth employment
* Increase the involvement of the Jordanian private sector and the society in general in the development of youth and the enhancement of quality of education
* Link the Jordanian youth to the job market and provide them with better employment opportunities
* Develop and execute a sustainable mechanism for INJAZ

Jordan business Magazine describes the background thus:

With unemployment in most Arab countries remaining stubbornly high, there is now a growing realization that, for the region to move forward, it must address the widening gap between labor market demands and educational system’s supply. Naseem Tarawnah looks at INJAZ, one organization that has been at the forefront of bridging that gap by using an enterprising style of teaching and learning to plant the seeds of change. The year is 2050 and predictions made a little under half a century ago by an organization once known as the United Nations have all come true. The Arab world’s population of some 290 million has more than doubled. Poverty is rampant and so is unemployment. Natural resources, an important source of economic growth for the region, have been depleted and almost everywhere, there is a mismatch between jobs generated in the labor market and skills formed by the education system There are too many engineers; many of them are driving taxis now. Students are still struggling to earn degrees in computer programming even though by now practically every programming job in the world has been outsourced to India. Meanwhile, barbers hang archaic marketing degrees in their parlors, because once upon a time it was what everyone was told to study. As cynical a look into the future as it may be, with no immediate solutions on the horizon, the reality is not too far away.Naturally everyone has a theoretical answer to our region’s problems; everyone seems to have an idea where the fault lies. Yet, perhaps the single most pressing issue facing the entire Arab world today is that the current supply of labor is simply not meeting the demands of the private sector. That 70% of the population in the Arab world is under the age of 25, only serves to complicate matters.You may have heard the name “INJAZ” spoken in certain circles. You may also have brushed it off as just another NGO joining the ranks of the many organizations trying to make a difference, but a cliché is one thing INJAZ is not. From a simple pilot program, to one of Jordan’s most important yet unknown exports, INJAZ has now spread to many countries in the region. Funded by USAID and private sector companies, the primary goal of INJAZ is to meet the demands of the labor market with a supply of skilled workers. It does this by traveling back in time and starting right at the beginning: with the students

Do read the rest of the jordan-business article here

Another program in Israel is the Arab Bizcamp program, which aims to “provide young Arabs with the opportunity to experience the process of starting a business.” The project, in its first year, is a collaboration between the Asper Center for Entrepreneurship at the Hebrew University and the Al-Muntanda Association, a collection of business people and intellectuals from the Arab village of Sur Baher, in east Jerusalem near Kibbutz Ramat Rahel.The intention of the Arab Bizcamp founders is to do more than just provide the girls with the skills needed to open their own business. There will be funds available to loan to the students in order to facilitate them turning their ideas into reality, and regular advice and encouragement will be available to them once they strike out on their own. Ohad Ref is a director of the Asper Center, and quotes business tycoon Eitan Wertheimer when discussing the value of the program. “Wertheimer said he’s glad that Israel doesn’t have oil, since it means that we have to rely on research and creativity in order to raise the standard of life in our country.” “To this end, we run summer programs for disadvantaged youth from all over Israel, taking them away for two weeks to teach them business and science skills which they might otherwise never learn,” he says.
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Two wonderful programs to equip the youth for the future.Mabrouk/Kol Hakavod to INJAZ and Arab Bizcamp !!

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