SummIT Project: Celebrating Success and Progress!

Three years and 277 trainees later, the SummIT project will reach “project completion” at the end of August. SummIT has offered IT and employability skills training through a programme of 12-week courses, taster sessions, day courses and workshops. These have assisted unemployed people with their job-seeking plans.

Pictured above: Graduates and staff from the recent SummIT course

SummIT has been successful in securing ESF funding until June 2005. However, in order to continue supporting the unemployed, the project still requires match funding from public or trust funds.

Key achievements this year:

• 14 trainees achieved all 7 core modules of the ECDL (European Computer Driving Licence) qualification
• 10 further trainees completed modules of the core ECDL qualification (3 modules on average)
• 2 trainees completed Advanced Database Modules
• 9 trainees secured new employment
• 3 trainees enrolled in Edinburgh’s Telford College (NC in Business Administration, HNC/D in Computing Support Systems)
• 4 trainees moved to sectoral academies’ programmes
• 6 trainees are working as volunteer IT tutors and mentors to new recruits (2 of these are still actively job seeking and 2 work part-time).

Providing structured, flexible training in a supportive environment definitely has its rewards for people who previously felt they had “little to offer”. Benefits include increased employment prospects which can result in the improved economic well-being of the trainees themselves, and that of their local communities.

Perhaps the most significant outcome is one which is the most difficult to quantify and that is the increased personal confidence of the people who sign up for our programmes.

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