New virtual training to help 1,500 Fijian tourism workers find new jobs or start businesses

1,500 Fijian workers in the tourism and hospitality sector affected by COVID-19 will be offered virtual development training that will help them find alternative employment or even start their micro-businesses.

This training will be provided entirely free of cost and the actual beneficiaries will be identified after a pilot run of the training which will initially focus on 40 unemployed people.

These 40 people have already been registered after being identified by the Fiji Hotels and Tourism Association.

After the pilot run of the project, the training will then be expanded to cover an additional 3000 plus people in Fiji as well as Pacific island nations including Kiribati, Nauru, Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.

The courses including the materials such as data packages, advocacy support, communication, and monitoring reporting are made possible by UNDP through the support of the government of Japan which provided the funding.

Other partners include the United Nations Development Fund, the Pacific Tourism Organisation, Australia Pacific Training Coalition, and Fiji Hotels and Tourism Association.

The courses are provided by APTC and will comprise of micro-credential courses which will be prerequisites for an additional skills course.

Micro-credentials are certification-style qualifications that individuals choose to study to improve a skill found in a particular industry area.