Digital skills training for youth and small businesses
ICT is a fast-growing sector in Albania. Acquiring digital skills is becoming essential for all Albanians and businesses. Having up to date digital skills provides young Albanians with more opportunities to get interesting, flexible, and well-paid jobs. To stay competitive in the digital age businesses in Albania, especially micro and small enterprises, need to integrate digital marketing and other IT applications into their core business and daily operations.
In 2022 Help in Albania, with funding from Konrad Adenauer Stiftung, supported youth and small businesses in Berat to develop their digital skills. Twenty unemployed youth took part in a digital marketing course at Berat’s Youth Centre and learnt about digital marketing strategies, managing and growing social media accounts and how to use Google Ad and Lead Generation. The young participants also received soft skills training and individual coaching about working in the ICT sector from an independent careers advisor. By the end of the training the youth who had taken part were better placed to work as social media managers for local businesses or become content writers for websites.
A further 12 local small businesses took part in a parallel digital & entrepreneurship course. Local business owners and sole traders learnt how to increase the income of their business using a business canvas model and had sessions on managing finances and increasing sales through digital sales and e-commerce. In a tourist city like Berat there is scope for local artisans to market and more sell of their traditional products online.
With its digital skills project in Berat Help in Albania has a model which it can easily replicate and help ensure that the digital transformation in Albania is an inclusive one.
