The Digital Literacy Program in Aarhus and Copenhagen is oriented towards women with refugee or migrant backgrounds who reside in the Copenhagen and Aarhus areas, bringing them from completely lacking skills within the digital sphere to attaining foundational competencies in three of the competence areas defined in the DigComp Framework: information and data literacy; communication and collaboration, and safety. The Digital Literacy Program enables its students to achieve new digital opportunities for themselves in their everyday lives and their search for a good, stable job. Women empowerment in this hard-to-reach target group enables further support to their families and strengthens social and economic integration.
With grant support from DigiCo, ReDI School Denmark will be able to conduct three new editions of their existing Digital Literacy Program, reaching twice their usual number of beneficiaries. Classes are held in person in groups of 10-15 participants per course, 3 hours per week, for 12 weeks. ReDI School Denmark provides childcare options for all their mother students and offers translation for some classes to reach the women who are most in need of these classes – where digital marginalisation intersects with limited Danish skills. The curriculum focuses on specific exercises that teach the students basic computer uses and foster independence when using a laptop, covering from opening a computer and getting to know the keyboard to search for a job, CV and applications. DigiCo’s online assessment platform, Skillify, will be used at the beginning and the end of the course to measure the level of digital skills acquired by each student.
The three new editions of the Digital Literacy Program ran from March to July 2023 in Copenhagen and Aarhus schools.
IMPACT OF TRAINING:
- 36 participants
- 100% would recommend the Digital Literacy Program to others
- 100% reported learning immediately applicable skills
BEST PRACTICES:
- Accommodating various religious holidays according to students’ different religious and cultural backgrounds to ensure integration and tolerance
- As an increasing number of Ukrainian women are looking to enter the courses, there is the willingness of having translators or Ukrainian speaking volunteers in order to support them at the best possible level.
- Career workshops with enough volunteers to provide individual guidance have had positive feedback from students, as targeted and individual career support has the best results.
- The importance of having lots of breaks, where students can relax and where volunteers and students can talk to each other, creating personal connection and a feeling of mutual trust.
If you want to learn more about the project, you can visit their website (Copenhagen and Aarhus), or contact Rie Meyer Sørensen at rie@redi-school.org.
Organisation:
Our partner ReDI School of Digital Integration DK is a non-profit IT school part of the ReDI School network. Through free-of-charge courses ranging from advanced to the most basic digital skills levels, they provide women with refugee and migrant backgrounds with valuable digital skills and a network to provide new social and professional opportunities. Their educational goal is to provide students with useful knowledge appreciated by industry to support their accelerated integration into the Danish labour market and society. In addition, they work closely with organisations looking to hire IT talent to address the shortage of skilled workers and the gender gap in the IT sector in this country. ReDI School Denmark began their activities in Copenhagen in 2019 and in January 2022 it started a secretariat in Aarhus. Since their establishment, they have reached more than 500 women.