„Direction Employment“ is an innovative IT training program developed by Workshop for Civic Initiatives Foundation, together with partners from Ireland, Lithuania, Slovenia, Italy and Portugal. The training aims to open up new opportunities for 18 to 29-years-olds who are unemployed and not studying, in need of retraining and affected negatively by the covid crisis or are socially vulnerable due to poverty, disability, ethnicity or any other reason. The course is part of the "Direction Employment" project implemented by WCIF, with the financial support of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway under the Youth Unemployment Fund.
Kalin is just one of the trainees, who has decided to change the direction of his professional and career development urged by the new realities and arising difficulties after the onset of the pandemics in Bulgaria. What follows is his story in brief:
"My name is Kalin and I am 29 years old. I have a degree in finance. I've been doing things quite different from IT for the last few years. With the onset of the pandemic, I was made redundant and had to focus on something else to make a living with. At this point, my friends advised me to take an interest in the trends in the IT industry, as in Bulgaria technology has prospects for development and brighter future.
I started looking at the different positions in the sector and went deeper to explore job opportunities such as Quality Assurance.
I saw an incredible opportunity in a Facebook add published by Vratsa Software and I registered for the offered training without hesitation. I completed the training course for Quality Assurance and that is how „my journey began“.
The "adventure" I started was very interesting, the training was fun and exciting. The method of teaching used by the lecturers was fascinating and pleasant. In each new venture there are always difficulties and ambiguities, but the good thing is that we always received guidance and answers to our questions from our tutors and teachers, who demonstrated a very high level of responsiveness. To my surprise, thanks to the course, I was able to start an internship as soon as the training was finished. This training program was developed according to a model that allows us to start work immediately after graduation.
Thanks for the opportunity to be part of the project "Direction employment".