Roma Business Club (RBC) Basic operations course in clothing production started at the “Vocational Factory”

Funded by the United Nations (UNDP), the Roma Business Club (RBC), which was established within the scope of the Local Model Development Project for the Employment of Roma Youth, whose stakeholders on the public side are İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Vocational Factory, Konak Municipality, İzmir Governorship, Provincial Directorate of Social Services, Konak District Governorship and private sector institutions EGİAD, İZTO, EBSO, İEBSO, has started the basic operations course in clothing production.

We were guests at the first of the vocational training and employment courses for Roma youth in Izmir.

İzmir Metropolitan Municipality Vocational Factory Branch Manager Zeki Kapı, Konak Municipality Council Member Tolga Küleş and United Nations Development Program Regional Coordinator Güvenç Küçüktok made statements to Roman News Agency about vocational trainings.

Izmir Metropolitan Municipality Vocational Factory Branch Manager Zeki Kapı; who is one of the most important stakeholders of the Roma Business Club, said: “Here, in the project of directing Roma youth to employment, we are carrying out a process that the Vocational Factory actually does routinely, collecting needs from the sectors, making sectoral analyzes and then determining the branches accordingly, this time in this project.

Today, we started our first course in this project with the basic operations lead in the field of textile, clothing production. Our course will last for 140 hours and will continue for 12 weeks, after which we will be realizing new branches of this project in areas such as prosthetic nails, nail decoration and peace.

Especially with the deepening poverty in recent times, we observe that employment has a very important place in our lives. This factory produces work, love and hope, so we have offered them all the opportunities I have just mentioned. We are just waiting for them to take the time and come here to learn these professions and join the working life.”

Tolga Küleş, Municipal Councillor of Konak District of Izmir, where the first phase of the project was carried out, said the following about the courses that started; “First of all, I would like to thank all the stakeholders of the Roma Business Club who have a share in the realization of the project and our Konak Mayor, Architect Nilüfer Çınarlı Mutlu, who has never withheld her support to the Roma community.

I find this project very valuable as it will solve the employment problem of the Roma community to some extent. It is also very pleasing that young women show great interest in vocational trainings. First of all, trainings were started in the textile sector and very soon our nail care course will be launched, our aim is to further diversify the sectors. Our wish is to extend this project, which started in Konak, to all of Izmir and even to Turkey.”

Güvenç Küçüktok, Regional Coordinator of the United Nations Development Program, who is one of the leading contributors to the project, said: “Today we have started our first vocational course, the basic operations course in clothing production in our project for the employment of young Roma. As the United Nations Development Program, in the employment of young Roma people project, we actually aim to ensure that young people in the Roma neighborhoods of Izmir’s two Konak districts, men and women, are referred to today’s employment market in the best way possible, equipped with the necessary professional skills and oriented towards jobs suitable for them.

In whichever sector we have opened courses, we are in contact with the companies in that sector and we will support all these young people in their job placement processes near the end of the courses. We will not only provide them with vocational courses, but we will also provide them with trainings that will empower them in terms of life skills and personal development.”