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"It is … our duty as scientists to promote education, rational thinking and tolerance. We should also encourage our educated youth to become technological entrepreneurs. Those countries that nurture this knowhow will survive future financial and social crises. Let us advance science to create a better world for all."
Professor Dan Shechtman, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry 2011, and member of World ORT’s Academic Advisory Council in Israel.

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"I think education is the fundamental component to South Africa being able to become a successful nation. Education should not be based on race, class, gender or ethnicity and ORT has ensured that people from all walks of life are afforded an equal chance for a better tomorrow.”
Johnny Clegg, musician and anthropologist.

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"Throughout the world, ORT schools provide a modern educational environment in which young people learn to appreciate time-honoured general values as well as get connected to Jewish values. The cutting edge technological orientation brought in by ORT positions Jewish schools at a much higher level, thus providing them with an ability to attract the generation who may otherwise remain unaffiliated."
Natan Sharansky

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"I have had occasion before to remark on the fact that ORT's activity does not base itself upon 'charity' but upon self help. Both for the work of rebuilding human lives and the great task of building a new nation in Israel, the acquisition of skills assumes an enormous importance. I want to assure you of my greatest admiration for the cause in which you are so nobly engaged."
Albert Einstein

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"Your vocational training activities … represent a constructive activity on a people-to-people level which deserves approbation … You are engaged in a work of great humanitarian significance. Yours is the type of meaningful program which transmits skills and technical knowledge as an aid to the modernization of communities and to the improvement of living standards. It is thus in consonance with the main currents of our times."
President John F. Kennedy

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"…ORT has provided an education for life to Jews and others in vulnerable communities throughout the world. In so doing, it has exemplified one of Judaism's greatest values. We are the people who predicated our very existence as a people on education, on 'teaching... diligently to our children.' … The civilizations of ancient Egypt, Greece and Rome have long since disappeared. Judaism still lives and flourishes and survives. ORT is testimony to that truth.”
Lord Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth

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04 Nov 2011 15:07 Age: 194 days
Category: News Update, IC

Tackling poverty in Mali with World ORT’s help

World ORT has set the ball rolling for more effective vocational training in Mali with a pair of projects funded by the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.   World ORT’s International Cooperation Department (ORT IC) has teamed up with the local organisation ID-Sahel to create what is planned to be a modern, self-sustaining training capacity for a nation which is among the 25 poorest in the world.   Since February, ORT IC has been in the mainly Muslim West African country identifying and training 500 artisans to be “master craftsmen”. These master craftsmen will provide training in 50 trades – from carpentry to auto-mechanics – at centres set up by the Government and through apprenticeships.   And in a complementary 12-month project, which started in August, ORT IC has been training a team of 41 Ministry of Professional Training staff to be inspectors who will oversee the quality of the master craftsmen’s training and help them to acquire new training skills.   “We’ve set the ball rolling,” said ORT IC Project Manager Jeroen Beukers in Geneva. “Once we’ve finished it will have its own momentum and continue to help people without us, in line with ORT’s philosophy of helping people to help themselves.”

International expert Marcel Roy training some of the government inspectors.

Less than half Mali’s 14 million people are literate, one sign of why the country suffers cripplingly high levels of unemployment.

 

“There are insufficient educational opportunities for young people so our project will increase their chances of finding work and setting up their own businesses,” Mr Beukers said.

 

But it also explains why the master craftsmen themselves need training in order to be efficient and effective trainers.

 

“Once we found our 500 we had to assess their own training needs, see their strengths and weaknesses, and formulate programmes accordingly,” he said. “The result is fully skilled trainers who will be able to make a good living by teaching full-time in training centres or who can stay in business and develop it with the help of apprentices.”

 

Recognised as one of Africa’s strongest democracies, Mali has stuck to economic reforms which have resulted in impressive economic growth over the past 14 years and attracted foreign investment. But according to 2004 figures, which are the latest available, nearly one-third of the population is unemployed and more than one-third lives below the poverty line.

 

“The training we’ve provided for the master craftsmen has greatly improved their teaching and training techniques, which, in turn, will help more than 13,000 young apprentices. It’s clear that this will significantly reduce poverty in Mali, in particular by getting young people into work,” said Bernard Duprat, who leads the ORT IC’s 13-strong team of local, African and Canadian experts. “All the feedback I have received from trainees in our classes in Segou and Yorosso points to the programme being a success.”

 

The upgrading of the Ministry staff’s skills means that they will not only supervise the training provided by the master craftsmen but will also update their training and develop new training programmes to suit changing circumstances.

 

“Traditionally, knowledge and expertise have been handed down from generation to generation by mimicry meaning that the evolution of knowledge and techniques is slow,” Mr Beukers said. “But Mali has shown that it has the potential to grow and the development of modern, professional training methods will encourage the exploitation of new opportunities.”

 

These projects are the latest in a series which World ORT has undertaken in Mali, starting in 1962 with a USAID-supported programme training mechanics and laboratory technicians.

 

Since then, ORT IC – supported by organisations including the African Development Bank, World Bank, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation, and USAID – has established re-training programmes for government employees, trained trainers in public and private industry, trained maintenance personnel in a veterinary laboratory producing vaccine for the livestock industry, and provided managerial and research expertise for the successful implementation of other projects.

 

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