Today, Symba announced a collaboration with Na’amal to power their virtual mentorship program for refugees. The program is implemented with the MIT Refugee Action Hub (ReACT), which provides educational opportunities to registered refugees, forcibly displaced people, and host country citizens.
Na’amal works with organizations such as MIT ReACT to empower refugees through skills training, mentorship, and remote work, including paid internships. Going virtual has allowed this program with MIT ReACT to expand globally, with 50 mentees in the current cohort. Mentees represent 22 countries and are located mainly in Latin America, the Middle East, Africa, and the United States, as well as in some parts of Europe and the Philippines.
“Our virtual mentorship program matches our learners with mentors who are skilled professionals, providing a safe space to build camaraderie and trust between the pair. We hope that this working relationship will facilitate further development of our learners’ professional skills as they simultaneously progress through remote internships in their field. At Na’amal, we are optimistic that this experience will provide the opportunity for our mentees to advance and sustain careers across geographic borders,” says Lorraine Charles, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Na’amal.
Symba is excited to power the important work Na’amal is doing to open up the workforce for refugees with its platform, which helps organizations manage and scale their talent development programs. Program participants have already gone through skills training to develop advanced competencies in computer and data science and are scheduled to start the mentorship program this month.
“We’re proud to partner with Na’amal to support global talent development opportunities for refugees,” says Ahva Sadeghi, CEO and Co-Founder of Symba. “Remote work is key to overcoming barriers of employment and providing equitable opportunities no matter someone’s life circumstances. Symba’s platform will make it easier for mentees to engage and build community remotely with their mentors and ensure meaningful relationships.”
About Na’amal
Na’amal was born out of research and observations about the economic situation of refugees in the Middle East. They knew that there had to be a better way for forcibly displaced people to earn a living than to be subjected to informal work in precarious conditions and in indignity.
Na’amal provides refugees and other vulnerable populations training in marketable skills required in the global labor market and links them to these jobs. They aim to shift the narrative of refugee employment with remote work.
For more information, visit naamal.org.
About MIT ReACT
The MIT Refugee Action Hub (ReACT) is an initiative at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that provides educational and professional opportunities to talented and motivated refugee, displaced, and underserved learners where they live. Launched in 2017, MIT ReACT identifies, aggregates and cultivates ideas, solutions, and best practices, providing access to relevant learning resources and professional development opportunities to learners from around the world, opening up digital accelerated pathways to higher education and fulfilling careers in STEM. MIT ReACT’s cornerstone program—the Certificate in Computer and Data Science (CDS)—offers a microcosm of MIT’s open learning ecosystem, integrating four components that leverage strengths of MIT: academics, entrepreneurship, experiential learning, and networking.
For more information, visit react.mit.edu.
