Giving Children the Tools for Success: Recap of the School for Work Program
At Vector Labs, we believe that every child deserves the opportunity to succeed. That's why we are proud to partner with and support the Give a Book Foundation in their School for Work program, which aims to help youths aged 15-18 who are about to leave an institution to prepare for work and life outside.
For five days, 40 children from institutions across the country came together to work in teams and gain real-world experience and skills in various industries. The program started with a "Writing a CV workshop" on Thursday, followed by interviews for the six different companies at School for Work: a beauty salon, construction company, restaurant, bakery, creative agency, and IT company.
Every day the young people had responsibilities, and followed punctual hours and ethics as in a real work environment. They learned the ins and outs of these businesses, gaining valuable experience that will serve them well as they prepare to leave their institutions.
Our team at Vector Labs was honored to participate in the program as both mentors and volunteers. We helped organize the School for Work program and held IT workshops for the children, giving them a taste of the world of technology and coding. During the workshop, we introduced the young ones to the different professions in the IT world, wrote a mobile app specification, and then made mobile apps together. Our UX lead, Maya, helped the youngsters in this endeavour!
After 4 days of hard work and an exciting program, on Sunday, the program came to its most exciting part - the Final Bazaar, where all the groups had the opportunity to present what they had learned over the past few days.
The event was open to the public, and visitors had the chance to meet the children and see firsthand the new skills they had gained. It was inspiring to see the children's confidence and pride as they presented their work.
At Vector Labs, we know that School for Work is vital for inspiring these incredible young people and we are happy to have been a major partner at its tenth anniversary. We hope that this experience will stay with the kids as they move forward into the next stage of their lives and that they will continue to grow and thrive in all their future endeavours.