Digital Innovation and Skills Hub

What is DISH?

DISH is an e-learning platform developed to provide access to youth and women to develop employment skills. Through DISH, online short certificate courses of 3 months are created and made available. The courses increase the employability of youth and women because they link to key emerging sectors in employment and contribute to stability, peace and resilience.

Objectives

The objective of DISH is to increase enrolment in certificate education in order to increase employment possibilities. Especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic, youth and women face challenges to find employment, while employers struggle to employ people with matching skills in fast-growing sectors in the employment market. The opportunities and sectors of employment have been identified through research by the partners in earlier programmes, such as the ARC-EYE project led by Mekelle University, which identified key employment sectors for youth.
The DISH courses bridge that gap by focusing on low-threshold e-learning courses, which can be used in online and offline digital learning on a variety of devices and settings.

DISH partnership

The DISH platform was established with partners in Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Ethiopia, Uganda and the Netherlands to implement two projects funded under the Orange Knowledge Programme managed by Nuffic and funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
The projects contribute to peace building, employment for vulnerable youth and women, and strengthening resilience. Through building capacity on e-learning and development of 9 low-threshold skill-based courses, the projects will graduate around 13.000 youth/women in employable areas enhanced with digital innovation and increase capacities of authorities to utilize new opportunities of digitalization and data sharing. The courses link to developing areas of employment as well as key areas for peace building, resilience and stability.
About the Orange Knowledge Programme
The Orange Knowledge Programme is a € 220 m Dutch global development programme, available in 54 developing countries and managed by Nuffic, a Dutch non-profit organisation for internationalisation in education. Launched mid-2017, it aims to have provided tens of thousands with the possibility to change their future through education and training by mid-2022. The programme is funded by the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

DISH partners

DISH has 12 diverse partners ranging from Universities to civil society organisations. They include East Africa University and Eastern College in Somalia; the Sudanese Organisation for Research and Development (SORD) in Sudan; Community Empowerment for Progress Organisation (CEPO) in South Sudan; Mekelle University, Aksum University, Admas University, Addis Ababa University, and Adwa Pan-African University in Ethiopia; Kampala International University in Uganda; and the NGO Action Africa Help International. Tilburg University in the Netherlands assists the partnership.

DISH courses

The DISH courses focus on key skills for employment, resilience and stability. All courses also include personal resilience and life skill parts. Tip: you can follow more than one course!
All courses offer guidance and mentors that can help you make the next step to employment. If you come up with a good business proposal, you could be awarded further guidance and funding to further develop your idea.

Take a course

S/N COURSE TITLE: DESCRIPTION
1 Peace Building and Conflict Resolution Diplomacy (PBCRD) Conflicts can occur between countries, communities, within companies and families. In this course focuses on skills that students can use to resolve conflicts, such as language, communication, health and mediation.
2 Peace Communication, ICT and Media (PCICTM) This course will teach you the language of peace. It will build skills for you to communicate online and offline, like journalism, languages, and computer science. You will learn to effectively communicate your message and engage with your audience.
3 Legal Justice System (curriculum Rule of Law, RoL) This course will teach you basic skills and foundations of law and the justice system. From traditional justice to international justice, the course teaches you what you need to obtain a certificate showing that you master the basics of the legal justice system and the Rule of Law.
4 Community and customary law (CCL) Community and Customary Law is focused on the traditional aspects of justice and community. It covers governance, customary law, and the principles of mediation. Gender and customary law are also key aspects in this course.
5 Business administration (BA) Business Administration will teach you what you need to know about working in the private sector or setting up your own business. From start to finish, the course covers economic principles and regulations, teaches you about finances and investment, tells you what you need to start up on your own, and how to keep your books and accounting in order.
You can follow up this course by taking optional training in a new area in which you can develop yourself as a professional.
Optional training: Hairdressing, shopkeeping, restaurant, energy, logistics, governance support, administration refugee support, primary school teaching, communication, ICT entrepreneurship, Health & Mental health, accounting, customer relations, supply arrangements, textiles & garments, construction materials, urban agriculture, livestock, poultry.
6 Computer Science Level 1 (CS1) The digital world is growing fast and offers new opportunities for young professionals. Computer Science Level 1 teaches you the basic computer skills such as coding, programming and data science. It also teaches you how to put these skills to use to gain employment.
7 Computer science Level 2 (CS2) Do you want to go a step further, or do you already know the basics of computer science? Try computer science level 2. This course will teach you about Big Data and how to manage them. The course will teach you about the cutting edge of data and making data Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable (FAIR). After this training, you will be a Data Steward ready to work with the newest data developments.
7 Computer science Level 3 (CS3) This course is the next level of Computer Science Level 3. It is a smooth transformation from a previous course where programming basics, data preprocessing and manipulation skills were obtained by students. The course is designed for a 3-month period and all materials will be available online in the Learning Management System (LMS) https://lms.kiu.ac.ug/DISH.
8 Community resilience This course teaches you to become a community leader and apply a short programme that reduces stress and builds community resilience. The course will teach you to recognise the challenges in communities, to roll out the resilience programme within communities, and to work with the medical services. It also teaches you to work on problems such as violence, suicide and parenting.
9 Community health (CH) This course trains you to become a community health worker. In three months, the course covers the basics of healthcare, including maternity and child health, immunization, first aid, hygiene and treatment of common diseases. The course will show the future of healthcare by teaching you about digital health. It will also show you how to deal with COVID-19 in your community.
10 Primary school teaching (PST) The course on primary school teaching will show you the basics of how to be a teacher. The course will give you an overview of what information children should learn and how you can effectively communicate this to them. At the end of the course, you will be assisted to do an internship at a school to put your new skills to work.

Take a course

DISH Partners