Newswise — The effort involves a consortium of six organizations including UIC, the African AIDS Initiative International, the Ethiopian Employers Federation, Christian Relief and Development Association, the Council of International Programs U.S.A. and Addis Ababa University.
The initiative is funded with a $100,000 U.S. State Department grant.
Undergraduates attending Addis Ababa University will now receive job and life-skills education through a new training center designed to better prepare them for the workforce upon graduation.
The objective is to provide essential workforce readiness skills and connect university students with employers, according to Alice Johnson Butterfield, UIC professor of social work.
"The loss of qualified, educated professionals to opportunities in other countries is devastating Ethiopia," Butterfield wrote in the proposal for the grant. "There are many professional employment opportunities in Ethiopia, but no means to connect qualified candidates with those opportunities."
Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, is challenged with a labor force that lacks professional skills. It also faces the ravaging effects of HIV/AIDS.
As a result, Butterfield said addressing workforce development at the university level is becoming increasingly important.
To help deal with the imminent staffing crisis, the Community Work and Life Center will begin offering grads internship and job-placement assistance and life-skills advice on HIV/AIDS prevention and family planning.
The idea for the center builds on the alliance established between UIC and Addis Ababa University through the Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership -- an initiative that provides academic training for students who want to become social workers.
Officials expect the center to open sometime in January 2006.
Addis Ababa University, the oldest institution of higher education in Ethiopia, is located in the capital and largest city at the geographic center of the nation. In the 2002-03 academic year, the university had a registered student population of 23,000.
UIC ranks among the nation's top 50 universities in federal research funding and is Chicago's largest university with 25,000 students, 12,000 faculty and staff, 15 colleges and the state's major public medical center. A hallmark of the campus is the Great Cities Commitment, through which UIC faculty, students and staff engage with community, corporate, foundation and government partners in hundreds of programs to improve the quality of life in metropolitan areas around the world. For more information about UIC, visit http://www.uic.edu
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