Unemployed youth who are part of the 2016 Digital Ambassadors Programme in the City of Johannesburg (COJ) have trained nearly 400 000 community members with basic online skills.
In partnership with the University of Johannesburg (UJ) and the Harambee Youth Empowerment Accelerator, the COJ moved to establish the R80 million digital training initiative last year.
It forms part of the city's mandate to bridge the digital divide in Johannesburg. Through the programme, the city recruits and trains unemployed matriculants in digital literacy and information technology. These ambassadors then went out and trained others.
To achieve this, they rolled out thousands of free WiFi hotspots, providing each resident with 300MB of data per day, at selected Rea Vaya bus stations, community centres, schools, libraries, clinics, government buildings and many more community sites.
The ambassadors helped other residents connect to the free WiFi and then taught them how to access and utilise the zero-rated Maru A Jozi portal which offers free, unlimited access to digital services and information, as well as other basic skills.
At the end of their contracts, the ambassadors were given a UJ- and COJ-endorsed certificate, and their information uploaded to a skills directory which will hopefully provide them with more work in the future.
The programme has trained 1 810 ambassadors this year.
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