Building ICT capacity skills of youth in the east

Saturday, 23 October 2010 05:14 - - {{hitsCtrl.values.hits}}

HSBC recently handed out IT scholarships to deserving youth in the east of the country to equip them with the much needed ICT tools to help them access the many opportunities in the market and enhance their employability.

A total of 50 scholarships were handed out by Nick Nicolaou, Chief Executive Officer of HSBC Sri Lanka and Maldives, to deserving youth in Trincomalee, Kinniya, Kantalai and Muttur at the Sarvodaya Centre in Trincomalee in the presence of representatives of Sarvodaya.

The handing out of these scholarships is part of an ongoing corporate sustainability initiative started in November 2009 with Microsoft and Sarvodaya-fusion.

Following from the national declaration of 2009 as the year of ‘English and IT,’ the main goal of the project was to address the immediate need and build adequate knowledge of IT education amongst the country’s youth to help Sri Lanka meet the demands of the 21st Century, while paving the way for a knowledge driven society.

Currently the project has granted 75 scholarship to train youth in the north with ICT skills and a further 50 scholarships were handed out to youth in the south.

While the project seeks to empower 200 youth in the north, east and south with IT scholarships, 25 computers were also donated by HSBC to Sarvodaya centre in Jaffna to enable the learning process of students in these areas.

As a result of the larger project with Microsoft and Sarvodaya, it is expected to benefit 1,950 youth in the country will Information Technology skills; thereby enhancing the employability for village based micro enterprises and better productivity of small enterprises through the use of IT.

This project further manifests the bank’s commitment and engagement with the communities it operates in and is part of its global business philosophy.