Teen girls at Cre­do Sophia House re­cent­ly had an op­por­tu­ni­ty to learn more about the world of work and plan their fu­ture ca­reer paths, when of­fi­cials from the glob­al tech­nol­o­gy com­pa­ny IGT vis­it­ed them as part of ob­ser­vances of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day 2024.

A re­lease from IGT Trinidad and To­ba­go notes that on Sat­ur­day (March 2), IGT’s Peo­ple and Trans­for­ma­tion Re­gion­al Se­nior Man­ag­er for the Caribbean, Shavin­dra Tewarie-Singh, de­liv­ered a mo­ti­va­tion­al talk at Sophia House, “to fos­ter con­fi­dence in the girls’ fu­ture ca­reer paths.”

In ad­di­tion, sev­er­al IGT em­ploy­ees worked with each of the young ladies, whose ages ranged be­tween 13 and 17 years old, to de­vel­op per­son­al vi­sion boards for reach­ing their goals.

"It was won­der­ful to have this op­por­tu­ni­ty to speak to the young ladies of Cre­do Sophia House about their fu­ture,” said Tewarie-Singh. “We want to equip them with a bet­ter un­der­stand­ing of the world of work and help them build the con­fi­dence to achieve their full po­ten­tial.”

This young lady works on her vision board during IGT’s career guidance session at Credo Sophia House, on Saturday 2 March 2024. [Image courtesy IGT]

Co­or­di­na­tor of Cre­do Sophia House, Ann Marie Ro­driguez, wel­comed IGT’s ca­reer guid­ance and men­tor­ing ini­tia­tive.

“We are thank­ful for IGT’s ded­i­ca­tion to em­pow­er­ing the Sophia House girls and open­ing doors for pro­fes­sion­al men­tor­ship,” she said. "The girls re­al­ly ap­pre­ci­ate vis­its like these in which they can ask ques­tions and hear sto­ries from the per­son­al ex­pe­ri­ences of suc­cess­ful women. The op­por­tu­ni­ties of­fered in IGT’s ASA pro­gramme have in­spired them to take more of an in­ter­est in tech­nol­o­gy, and the girls are al­ready look­ing for­ward to IGT's next Cod­ing and Ro­bot­ics Rock! Camp this sum­mer."

Cre­do Sophia House has been a ben­e­fi­cia­ry of the IGT Af­ter School Ad­van­tage (ASA) Pro­gramme since 2021.

For the past two years, girls from Sophia House have par­tic­i­pat­ed in the be­gin­ner and in­ter­me­di­ate lev­els of IGT’s Cod­ing and Ro­bot­ics Rock! Camp, a vir­tu­al camp held ex­clu­sive­ly for the ben­e­fi­cia­ries of IGT’s ASA pro­gramme dur­ing school va­ca­tion. 

IGT notes that its ASA pro­gramme en­sures that youth have ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy and can par­tic­i­pate in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing and math (STEM) ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties, de­vel­op­ing the knowl­edge and skills for the jobs of to­mor­row.

(L-R) Chelsea Alleyne, IGT Administrative Assistant; Tanya Singh, IGT Global People Services Representative; Ann Marie Rodriguez, Credo Sophia House Coordinator; Shavindra Tewarie-Singh, IGT People & Transformation Regional Senior Manager – Caribbean; and Darron Marcelle, IGT Courier, joined forces to recognise International Women’s Day at Credo Sophia House, on Saturday 2 March 2024. [Image courtesy IGT]

About IGT’s Af­ter School Ad­van­tage Pro­gramme

As part of IGT’s Sus­tain­able Play™ ini­tia­tives, Af­ter School Ad­van­tage (ASA) is the com­pa­ny’s flag­ship com­mu­ni­ty ini­tia­tive, de­vot­ed to pro­vid­ing youth with ac­cess to tech­nol­o­gy at dig­i­tal learn­ing cen­tres in com­mu­ni­ties where IGT op­er­ates.

The pro­gram en­sures stu­dents have ac­cess to par­tic­i­pate in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, en­gi­neer­ing and math (STEM) ed­u­ca­tion­al op­por­tu­ni­ties while de­vel­op­ing the knowl­edge and skills for the jobs of to­mor­row.

Since 2011, IGT and its sub­sidiaries have opened 39 ASA com­put­er labs across the Eng­lish-speak­ing Caribbean. As part of the Com­pa­ny’s on­go­ing com­mit­ment to sup­port­ing its glob­al com­mu­ni­ties, IGT aims to con­tin­u­al­ly en­hance the tech­no­log­i­cal aware­ness of stu­dents and pre­pare them to con­tribute to the so­cial and in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment of the Caribbean.