ORT Provides Vocational Skills to Kosovar Refugees

09.04.99

ORT PROVIDES VOCATIONAL SKILLS TO KOSOVAR REFUGEES TO PREPARE THEM FOR HOME World ORT Union is now providing training to 256 refugees in the ORT training centre in Tirana, Albania. Following a detailed assessment of their needs, the refugees, who have chosen to stay in Tirana until after the winter, are being trained in practical and employable skills in preparation for their return home. Women are being taught secretarial skills, computer skills, cosmetology, restaurant services, fashion design and sewing, automotive repair and English language. Men are being taught construction skills and are being trained as teams, that is, a plumber, an electrician, a brick layer per team, so that they will be able to rebuild their homes which have been destroyed by the war. 80% of the students are women, the vast majority widows, who will now be the bread winners of the families. Photographs are available 80% of the students are women, the vast majority widows, who will now be the bread winners of the families. Photographs are available WORLD ORT UNION is one of the largest non-governmental education and training organisations in the world and collaborates with various international co-operation agencies. ORTs support is always linked to training and employment, helping people to help themselves. ORT has supported economic and social development in more that sixty countries through vocational education, training and the provision of technical assistance. World-wide, ORT has over 12,000 teachers and a current student body of 260,000.