A new Belfast-based social enterprise was launched today, creating 11 full-time jobs in computer repair, upgrading and maintenance.
SY:NC, which was formed by Northern Ireland's largest community training provider Springvale Learning, has taken long term unemployed people off benefits to equip them for a career in computers.
Its aim is to build a self-sustaining business that can provide work experience and training for up to 30 people over the next two years. The company is part of a project, which is partly financed by the European Social Fund and the Department for Employment and Learning, seeks to provide "transition through technology" by retraining people in marketable high tech skills and providing nine months experience in full time employment.
Senior Training Manager Bill Atkinson explained that SY:NC was the first social enterprise company to be founded by Springvale Learning, and if this pilot project proves successful, it is hoped to repeat it in a range of other business areas.
"The people employed by SY:NC range in age from their 20s to their 50s and have found themselves unemployed largely because of the state of the economy. They have a wealth of experience and desperately want to get back into employment," he said.
Mr Atkinson said that all of them completed a six month computer course before being offered a temporary job with SY:NC and will now receive valuable employment experience and further training for the next nine months.
"In addition to doing the data recovery and computer repair work, they will be trained in selling and writing tenders and we are hoping that as the company grows and develops, these temporary posts will become permanent.
"For the past few weeks, the employees have been busy researching the computer repair market and setting up a new website and SY:NC is now open for business," he added
(CD/GK) |
