Digital Opportunity Trust (DOT), an international NGO, will soon start reaching out to more citizens by giving them ICT skills.

The trainings are aimed at creating education, economic and entrepreneurial opportunities for the economically disadvantaged Rwandans, with emphasis on the youth and women.

This was disclosed during the graduation of the first lot of interns trained by DOT, early this week, an event that was graced by the Minister of Youth, Culture and Sports, Protais Mitali.

The first batch of interns graduated after ten months, having trained at least 1,680 Rwandans during the period.
The interns are mainly university or college graduates who are dispatched to the communities to impart basic ICT skills.

 "We have so far trained 1,681 community beneficiaries out of which 57% were women. We will soon deploy 85 interns who will train over 16,000 people around the country,” said Violette Uwamutara, the DOT Country Director.

Uwamutara cited that their aim is to empower the youth with ICT skills, after which they are required to go back and pass on to the communities and be agents of change.
This, she said, will help in eradicating poverty, vulnerability and promote gender equality.

Serge Sangano, one of the beneficiaries who joined the DOT training in August 2010, said that through the training, he was able to start his own business that has been successful.

"I dropped out of school because of lack of school fees and was unemployed for more than a year. I trained with DOT and got a job paying me Rwf 250,000 then decided to start up my own business,” Sangano testified.

He said he now earns over Rwf 750,000 as profit from his business.

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