As part of their summer internship project, four students from the University of Texas, Austin, lauren Matranga, Dhanya Addanki, Sharan Hoefer and Chris Rajan conducted a training programme on computer and spoken English for girl students of coastal fishing villages near Gopalpur in Ganjam district, which ended on Wednesday.
Altogether 23 girls were trained in spoken English and 38 in tailoring during the programme.The project concentrates on empowering youth through life skills and education by offering classes in English, computer and organising career development workshops.
lauren said, “We are part of Nourish International, a students’ body which works to address global poverty and spends part of their study time in various development projects across the world.”
Village activist SB Rao said, “We requested foreign students to work in the villages of Ganjam coast because the communication skill and computer knowledge of local students in the fishermen community is very poor,”
The beneficiaries belong to Venkataraipur, Digapur, New Boxipalli, Markandi, Ganga Bihar and Gopalpur NAC.
Three local NGOs were associated in implementation of the training programme.
A knowledge centre in Venkatraipur village was established up to provide computer and spoken English and work as a village resource centre.