Next Step Foundation recently marked the graduation of a cohort of young people with a range of disabilities, including participants with visual impairments, who completed AWS Solutions Architect training. The programme covered practical cloud computing skills and was delivered in a learning environment built around different disability and learning needs.
Technical training often shuts people out before training begins. Inaccessible platforms, materials that only work one way, venues that are hard to get into, and low expectations from instructors all narrow who gets to study technology and, later, who gets hired. This cohort worked without those obstacles because the programme planned for them. Over the weeks of training, participants worked through cloud computing concepts and hands-on exercises, and several built confidence in working independently with the tools.
Nickson Owuor, Project Manager at Next Step Foundation, spoke to the graduates about what the milestone required of them.
You have shown tremendous commitment throughout this journey. Completing the training is a major achievement, but it is also the beginning of what comes next. Keep learning, keep believing in your abilities and keep pursuing the opportunities ahead of you.
Fredrick Omollo, Employer Relationship Officer at Riziki Source, followed with a message about the move into work, addressing the graduates on preparing for recruitment and positioning themselves with employers. Riziki Source is a consortium partner under the Unlocking Opportunities Programme, leading employer mobilisation, job transitions and placement, and working with employers on inclusive hiring and workplace practice.
“Graduation is not the destination. You now have to take these skills into the market with confidence, continue building your professional profile and be ready when opportunities come. We will continue working with employers to help create those pathways.”
Certification alone rarely produces a job. Graduates also need introductions to employers, practice with recruitment processes, workplaces prepared to accommodate them, and support through the first months of a role. That is the work the wider programme is set up to do. The training sits within the Unlocking Opportunities Programme, supported by the Mastercard Foundation, which aims to reach more than 7,000 young people with disabilities in Kenya with business and employment opportunities. It is delivered by a consortium combining skilling, employment, entrepreneurship, accessibility and disability inclusion expertise, and targets both the barriers individuals face and the practices that create them. Next Step Foundation leads the skilling and competence-building work, teaching market-relevant technical and employability skills and supporting the move into work.
Young people with diverse disabilities participate in an AWS Solutions Architect class, seated at desks with laptops, including participants using wheelchairs.
For the graduates, the next steps are practice, further certifications and finding roles where the skills apply. For employers, a cohort like this is a source of candidates in a field where hiring is competitive. Our focus now turns to placement.
Congratulations to the graduating cohort.
