Around a third of unemployed people in Morocco are under the age of 24. This leads to frustration and a lack of prospects for many young people. For Rabiaa Benzina, it was not easy to start a career either: even with a high school diploma and subsequent training in electromechanics and automated systems, the young woman from Casablanca was unable to find a job. At the time, she also lacked guidance, she recalls: ‘I didn't know what opportunities there were on the labour market.’
Then the now 21-year-old heard about the Green Chip 4.0 project, which trains young people in computer maintenance. The workshops of the non-profit organisation Al Jisr Partenariat École - Entreprise are used for this. The programme is primarily aimed at young school dropouts, but also students, and is supported by Invest for Jobs. Benzina did some research and decided to sign up for the programme. A good decision, she thinks: ‘What I liked most about Green Chip 4.0 was the practical elements, which make up 80 per cent of the training.’
‘Thanks to the training at Green Chip 4.0, I was able to acquire various skills that will be extremely useful to me in the future.’
Rabiaa Benzina
Good for the environment, good for the self-employed
As part of their training with Green Chip 4.0, and with the guidance of a team of trainers, Benzina and her peers contributed to environmental protection by modernising decommissioned computers. These are then sold at favourable prices, primarily to students and the self-employed. In this way, the project also makes a contribution to environmental protection. The special thing about Green Chip 4.0 is that the young people are also supported in their job search after their one-year training programme. They benefit from the Al Jisr association's large network in the corporate world. And so it was that one day the phone rang for the person responsible for integration and follow-up: a company was looking for an IT technician with English language skills.
Benzina attended the interview, made a good impression – and got the job. She believes she is well positioned for the future. This is because the Green Chip 4.0 training has broadened her horizons, thanks to its multidisciplinary approach covering specialised areas such as video surveillance.
Green Chip 4.0 is supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH under the Special Initiative "Decent Work for a Just Transition" of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).