Ashgabat, 15 April 2020: The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) together with the Youth Union named after Magtymguly and the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Turkmenistan launch a virtual classroom which consists of a series of distance learning classes for young men and women, including vulnerable groups, to increase online literacy rate and assist with employment. The classes include trainings in basics of internet use and employment topics.   The subjects will be developed gradually to assist with more complex topics, such as creating mobile applications, developing websites and other IT solutions.

The classes were developed by the team of talented young volunteers, including students of foreign universities, Women-Tech group, Google Developers group, and other. The lessons are available through UNDP Turkmenistan website and its social media platforms in Russian and Turkmen languages. In the next couple of weeks video-classes will be added to the library.  The series of classes was designed under the regional Youth project funded by the Government of Japan.

"The idea to launch virtual classroom came in response to the current challenge linked with the COVID-19.  We expect that this initiative will help young people improve their skills in using internet and other online resources for job search and employment.  This, in turn, will help our young men and women to become competitive at the labour market which becomes very demanding for skills and qualifications nowadays."  explains Mehri Karakulova, UNDP project manager.

In addition, a contest is planned in the second part of the year which will include prizes, training opportunities, meetings with the UN leadership and exposure to activities organized by UNDP Youth project.  It would motivate young people to learn themselves and share their knowledge with friends in the communities.

The project is expected to reach young men and women in all the 5 regions of the country and benefit at least 600  young people in getting new skills and finding employment through a series of activities, including business trainings, profiling and case management, job skills trainings and other.