Due to the current situation provoked by the Covid-19, Junior Achievement Azerbaijan tries to get used to this new trend and make its work much swifter and digitalized. During the pandemic, JA Azerbaijan has continued the “Youth Empowerment and Leadership” Project and successfully expanded and provided relevant training activities online, targeting the youth living in Baku, Bilasuvar, Mingachevir, Kazakh, and Shamkir. The UNICEF initiative project is funded by the EU and implemented through close cooperation between Youth Houses in Binagadi, Khazar, Mingachevir, and Youth Development and Career Centers in Shamkir, Bilasuvar, and Kazakh.
The training program held online for three months comes in the context of the “Career Planning and Development” and aimed to foster smart career choices by providing career orientation and guidance at an early stage and promoting the development of career planning skills of the youth. Each Youth Center and Youth Development and Career Center successfully engaged 220 adolescents, aged between 13 and 25 years, to the training program, divided into five modules.
The youth benefited from the training and obtained valuable guidance based on practical suggestions, theoretical models, and current empirical evidence on enhancing their self-knowledge, including the confidence to explore new career opportunities to continue successfully on their pathway or to find a new one. The training also provided the youth with a practical description of skills and knowledge development to help them to set career goals in mind along with the steps they will need to take to make them a reality, and subsequently, incorporate it all into a written professional development plan. Besides, it was particularly useful to help the youth to create a professional CV that will catch the interest and to equip the youth with knowledge and techniques to effectively tackle the interview process and leave a positive impression with the prospective employer.
In conclusion, Career Planning and Development training was also suitable to help reengage the young generation in distant education and training during the lockdown all over the country to help them to make the most of their strengths, talents, and experience. JA Azerbaijan is also planning to engage the youth in upcoming “Financial Literacy” and “Entrepreneurship” training. The main expected result is to enhance youth participation and to increase knowledge to ‘upskill’ the youth, giving them experience in personal financial management and the opportunity to have a real impact on decision-making processes.