Issue: 10/12/05

UIC helps Ethiopian university launch job training for grads

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10/12/05

Jeffron Boynés

A collaboration between UIC and six organizations is working to improve life in Ethiopia by building a training center to spur employment, funded by a $100,000 grant from the U.S. State Department.

Based at Addis Ababa University, the new Community Work and Life Center will provide essential work readiness skills and connect undergraduates with employers, said Alice Johnson Butterfield, professor of social work.

“There are many professional employment opportunities, but no means to connect qualified candidates with those opportunities,” Butterfield wrote in the grant proposal.

Ethiopia, one of the poorest countries in the world, is challenged with a labor force that lacks professional skills. At least two-thirds of the country’s 67 million people are illiterate.

It also faces “brain drain” — an exodus of talent to better job opportunities and working conditions in other countries. As a result, Butterfield said, addressing workforce development at the university level is becoming increasingly important.

Among the most complex of concerns is the ravaging effects of HIV/AIDS. The nation has the fifth-highest incidence of HIV/AIDS in the world and statistics estimate that 3 million people in Ethiopia live with the deadly disease.

The center will offer the university’s graduates internship and job-placement assistance, along with advice on HIV/AIDS prevention and family planning.

Melese Getu, associate dean of the School of Social Work at Addis Ababa University, said the need for qualified job applicants, especially in a free market economy, is one of the big issues facing Ethiopian universities today.

Until five years ago, the government guaranteed employment for all college graduates, Getu added. Now, students must compete with other people for job openings.

“We want to equip students with the relevant skills and experience to make them stand out, which will require extra training,” he said.

In August, Getu and seven other Ethiopian officials traveled to Chicago to finalize plans for their center and take a closer look at how career centers operate.

Andres Garza, director of the Office of Career Services, and Mary Anne Buckman, vice president of the Alumni Career Center, gave the visitors an overview and talked about organizing campus career fairs.

Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center executive director Barbara Schechtman and principal investigator Nathan Linsk, professor of social work, discussed HIV/AIDS in the workplace.

Businessman Teshome Zewde, owner of Sun-Tesh Engineering and president of the Ethiopian Employers Federation, believes the new center will benefit Ethiopian employers.

“We will know where to go to find actual students with the type of skills we demand,” said Zewde.

The idea for the Community Work and Life Center builds on the university-to-university alliance established between UIC and Addis Ababa University through the Social Work Education in Ethiopia Partnership, which provides academic training for students who want to become social workers.

Officials expect the center to open sometime in January 2006.

Ten professionals from the United States will travel to Addis Ababa to help the center while learning about Ethiopian economic, political and social systems.

Other members of the consortium include the African AIDS Initiative International, Ethiopian Employers Federation, Christian Relief and Development Association, the Council of International Programs U.S.A. and Addis Ababa University.