Hear­ing-im­paired young peo­ple be­tween the ages of 15 and 24 years now have an op­por­tu­ni­ty to get cer­ti­fied in in­for­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy from YTEPP Lim­it­ed, which pre­pares them to be­come graph­ic de­sign­ers, mo­bile app de­vel­op­ers, among oth­er dig­i­tal skill sets.

Last Fri­day 10th De­cem­ber, sev­er­al youth mem­bers of the Trinidad and To­ba­go As­so­ci­a­tion for the Hear­ing Im­paired (TTAHI), re­ceived their cer­tifi­cates in Dig­i­tal Skills from YTEPP, in a small cer­e­mo­ny at TTAHI’s Of­fice, Wright­son Road, Port of Spain. Among those in at­ten­dance were Nigel Par­ris, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of YTEPP Lim­it­ed and Michelle Mul­care, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of TTAHI.

The pi­lot project for the Cer­tifi­cate in Dig­i­tal Skills was launched on Tues­day Sep­tem­ber 28th and be­gan with ex­pos­ing hear­ing-im­paired youth with dig­i­tal skills train­ing.  The aim was to en­sure they, too, can adapt to the “new nor­mal” by hav­ing the req­ui­site skills for suc­cess to al­low them to be ac­tive par­tic­i­pants in the econ­o­my and over­all so­ci­ety.

“This pi­lot project can morph in­to a more sus­tain­able part­ner­ship for rel­e­vant train­ing to the youth mem­bers of our as­so­ci­a­tion and we look for­ward to work­ing with YTEPP Lim­it­ed in achiev­ing this goal,” stat­ed Michelle Mul­care, Gen­er­al Man­ag­er of TTAHI.

Nigel Par­ris, Chief Ex­ec­u­tive Of­fi­cer of YTEPP Lim­it­ed, ob­served that the part­ner­ship with TTAHI has opened new op­por­tu­ni­ties in ed­u­ca­tion.

“YTEPP is in the busi­ness of train­ing and has ex­celled in its of­fer­ings, ser­vice and tar­get au­di­ence so that a wide cross sec­tion of young peo­ple, be­tween 15 and 35 years, can ben­e­fit. This tes­ti­mo­ny to YTEPP’s com­mit­ment, re­silience and work, and more im­por­tant­ly, the recog­ni­tion of the peo­ple we serve,” the YTEPP CEO not­ed.

“We are proud to have been a part of this pi­lot project and look for­ward to work­ing with the Hear­ing-Im­paired As­so­ci­a­tion as we are well poised to de­liv­er train­ing in pro­grammes such as Mo­bile App De­vel­op­ment, Au­to­CAD and Graph­ic De­signs”, he said.

Nigel Par­ris al­so chal­lenged the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty to en­sure the coun­try’s work­force can ac­cess even more up­skilling op­por­tu­ni­ties:

“As YTEPP moves along in its quest of ‘No One Left Be­hind’, the or­ga­ni­za­tion is once again mak­ing a clar­i­on call to Cor­po­rate Trinidad and To­ba­go to syn­er­gize ef­forts for the up-skilling of its hu­man cap­i­tal via in­creased ac­cess to ed­u­ca­tion and train­ing.”

The project with TTAHI and cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of its stu­dents comes on the heels of YTEPP re­cent­ly re­ceiv­ing the IDB’s Pres­i­dent’s Award for Peo­ple’s Choice in the cat­e­go­ry of Ser­vice Ex­cel­lence in the Pub­lic Sec­tor, as well as be­ing a fi­nal­ist in that in­ter­na­tion­al award scheme.