Thanks to the financial support of the International Renaissance Foundation and European Union in Ukraine within the humanitarian initiative “Humanity and Mutual Assistance”, as well as the IT company BWN Group, Razom for Ukraine is expanding its Veteranius project to help Ukrainian veterans, volunteers and internally displaced persons master programming skills. Project participants will also be taught English and provided with psychological support.
Razom and the BWN Group launched the Veteranius project on a volunteer basis in February 2020. Project participants work on real IT projects in collaboration with professional mentors. These are real IT jobs.
“Our main goal is to help veterans, volunteers and internally displaced persons to try, learn and gain work experience in IT. We want to not just teach, but to employ and involve participants in socially important projects,” said Lyuba Shipovich, co-founder and Vice President of Razom, who is also the project coordinator.
Veteranius already has 6 veterans working. They have jobs in IT and act as mentors for project newcomers. Now thanks to the funding from the International Renaissance Foundation, the project will be able to reach even more veterans. In total the project aims to involve 300 veterans over the next 6 months.
“During the COVID-19 pandemic, Ukrainians often lose or cannot find work and need help to gain additional professional qualifications and psychological support. The International Renaissance Foundation is pleased to support the Razom initiative to help Ukrainian veterans, volunteers and internally displaced people in these difficult times,” said Stanislav Lyachynsky, director of the International Capital program of the International Renaissance Foundation.
The project’s leaders plan to turn it into a permanent IT incubator. During the program, participants will receive real tasks on projects that require software development. Their work will be supported and supervised by mentors.
Moreover, the initial project team already gotten into the finals of the Open Data Challenge, was selected among 14 out of 190 IT teams that participated in this competition.
Ukrainian veterans can learn more about and join the project at https://www.razomforukraine.org/veteranius/
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The material reflects the position of the authors and does not necessarily reflect the position of the International Renaissance Foundation and the European Union.