“Freetown needs nothing short of a transformational leader with a vision and a set of policies to realise this vision. My organisation wholeheartedly supports Transform Freetown. It will require equipping our young people with the right skills for them to become job takers and job creators; it will also require providing opportunities for skills development for those who do not have no formal education. At the end of the day, it is the development of Freetown human capital that will truly transform our city. ”
Francis Stevens George, Managing Director, Global Entrepreneurship Network SL and Innovation SL
Targets & Initiatives for Skills Development
Target 1
Provide market-driven skills training to at least 20’000 people in Freetown by 2022
Initiative 1
Lead
Description
Convene key stakeholders to develop and implement FSDP (Freetown Skills Development Program) to scale up and formalize skills training in Freetown, by
- Convening key private, public, and social (e.g., teaching institutions) stakeholders and build task force
- Identifying bottlenecks and measures to create more training slots (e.g., FCC to encourage business to take up apprentices)
- Aligning increase of teaching capacity with market needs, e.g., leveraging the skills platform
Initiative 2
Lead
Description
Establish a “skills platform” to match skills and training supply and demand and to get visibility on trending skills needs and sectors, by
- Creating an online platform to offer and seek employment/jobs as well as internships or apprenticeships
- Providing sufficient interfaces into physical world to achieve highest possible coverage and ensure broad usability
- Leveraging FCC and other stakeholders to promote and boost platform
- Using platform to generate insights, e.g., on trending skills needs or to identify skills gaps and loop back into FSDP
Target 2
Teach functional literacy skills to at least 15,000 adults in Freetown with focus on women by 2022
Initiative 1
Lead
Description
Operationalize the Freetown Literacy Challenge, map and track existing adult literacy networks and organizations and link them with emerging initiatives and programs
- Conduct community baseline-survey to establish status quo of literacy
- Create community-based literacy challenge / competition to incentivize communities to increase literacy through attractive prices
- Run multiple rounds to maintain and increase impact over time
- Leverage proven concepts and programs to provide input to communities how they could create literacy programs
- Guide and support communities in implementation of programs
- Engage key stakeholders and conduct desk-review to map existing networks, organizations, and programs promoting adult literacy
“l grew up in Freetown; this is my city and / love it. It has saddened me over the years to see its decline, and I therefore wholeheartedly welcome and support Transform Freetown. Jobsearch is pleased to be a part of the Skills Development sector working group, which aims to improve literacy in Freetown for economic development and the wellbeing of individuals and communities. ”
Edleen Elba, Managing Director, JobSearch