Simplon.co, a social and public interest company based in France and abroad, has made digital training a lever for inclusion. In Senegal, the TotalEnergies Foundation supports Simplon.co in deploying training in digital professions applied to the industrial sector.
Simplon.co has been present in Senegal since 2017 and supporting its digital transformation. However, the country was still lacking the full range of technological competencies required to meet the requirements of businesses, which led Simplon.co to provide training and open up new career prospects for young people.
Since 2020, the TotalEnergies Foundation has backed the ADEFNIPA project, an alliance between Simplon.co and a group of local players who promote the inclusion of young people. Within this framework, Simplon.co offers training to unemployed young graduates in digital professions applied to the industry. The ultimate objective is to include 50% of women.
The first session took place from October 2020 to June 2021. 16 students, 24 years old on average, were given the opportunity to take a seven-month training course of 940 hours, with a positive outcome of 94%. This pilot session also enabled the government to approve the “Digitization and production chain maintenance” frame of reference, filed with the Ministry of Vocational Training.
For the second session, which started in July 2022, no less than 1,500 applications were received. 30 students, including 12 women, were selected for a nine-month course. Beforehand, the instructors had been introduced to active teaching, where the aim is to pass on competencies through practical scenarios. Around 15 companies have become partners this year.
Committed to the professional inclusion of vulnerable young people, particularly through the use of alternative teaching methods, TotalEnergies decided to lend its full support to this project: financial on the one hand, technical on the other, by organizing workshops, training courses, site visits, and courses for the students, and finally human, through the employee volunteer program Action!, which enables personnel to give three working days a year to tutor these young people and accompany them in their training or search for a job.
TotalEnergies, which has a strong presence in Africa, lends great importance to the development of the territories where it is established, and supports this, in particular through the TotalEnergies Foundation program. We’re convinced this type of initiative holds significant prospects on this young continent, where a great majority of the population requires better training to provide businesses with the skills they need. This type of project could for example be adapted for Mozambique or Uganda depending on needs and specificities.
