More than 300,000 young Tunisians have signed as much as a mobile employability service launched this month by an operator within the country.
Tunisiana, owned by Qatar’s Ooredoo network, formerly Qtel, has partnered with Arab social change organisations Silaltech and Edupartage to supply the Najja7ni Employment resource to assist the estimated 30 per cent of unemployed under-30s within the country.
The free service provides careers guidance, financial literacy information, career search strategies, links to local training opportunities and the best way to start a business. The guidelines is available in the shape of quizzes, SMS alerts, coaching and psychometric tests. It really works on any handset and is currently available in French but will soon be available in Arabic and English.
This is the third educational service to be created by Tunisiana, which says it’s ‘community-conscious communications company’ committed to using the most recent technology to handle key social issues. The corporate has also created a revision service and a platform to aid youth learn English.
Qtel, which owns Tunisiana and operates in further countries like Kuwait, Algeria, Iraq and Palestine, rebranded to Ooredoo earlier this year to take its subsidiaries under one roof and take a look at to attract a younger audience. Ooreddo means ‘I want’ in Arabic.
“Mobile phones play a key role within the lives of kids, helping to organise their social lives, providing them with entertainment and increasingly helping them enter the arena of labor and pursue their ambitions,” said Dr. Nasser Marafih, Group CEO, Ooredoo. “Communications companies ought to find new the right way to help them to do that, and I’m proud that Ooredoo is taking a lead on this area. We’re studying the success of Tunisiana’s ‘Najja7ni Employment’, and assessing how this approach may be mirrored in other markets inside the Middle East, North Africa and Asia.”
The company reported revenues of $9.3 bn in 2012 and had a world customer base of greater than 92.9m people.