Meet our JobHackers!

 

JobHack is dedicated to tackling youth unemployment on a global scale. We do this by empowering young people with practical job creation skills in a free online challenge. The passion of these young people is the backbone of our organisation and empowers us to continue to help them get started.

 

Entering BADRA.

In June 2017, Badra Jlassi shared a few insights from her experience with JobHack and what she has installed for the future.

 

Badra completed the JobHack online module and received her certificate. She now aspires to develop an enterprise co-working space to support female entrepreneurs in Tunisia, Africa. (How cool is that!)

 

Badra is the perfect model for women that make a true impact on the world and we are super excited to share her story with you.

 

Here’s how our chat went;

 

How did you find out about JobHack?
I found out about JobHack on Facebook through an advertisement so I signed up because it seemed like a good opportunity. I did the challenges and now I’m using all the apps that were recommended in the challenge. It was a great opportunity because it helped me to now consider entrepreneurship as a serious career path.

So tell us your story!
I’m 26, I live in Tunisia and I’m a textile engineer which is what I studied. I’m also really interested in digital marketing. After graduating I was recruited as a trainer for a woman’s enterprise centre in sustainability. I was interested in JobHack because it’s something I have been working on every day as well in my work.

I’ve only recently started my professional life, so I have a lot to learn. I also do design with horticulture and handcrafts in the textile world because it’s my hobby.

Tell us about the situation around youth unemployment in Tunisia
There’s no political stability so it’s hard for the economic situation. On the other hand, young people here are not motivated. The problem is that you might have a job on offer but you can’t find the right person for the job. Young people need to work harder to develop their soft skills and competencies.

Why is there a motivation problem with young people?
Because of the academic system here. I studied for 5 years in engineering school, but I was also really curious to learn about other things besides engineering. Other students were content to just learn what their degree offered and little else. Students need to do more extra-curricular work to develop their own curiosity for learning and expand their portfolio of skills.

How would you solve the employment problem in your country?
We are trying to develop the autonomisation of young people and women in this country to improve our economic situation. Both the government and lots of NGO’s are trying to develop this self-efficacy amongst people. There are more opportunities now than there were before so it’s getting better. But it’s still hard to get started so we have a lot of work to do to convince people to take the risk of starting an enterprise.

What is it like starting a business in Tunisia?
Some businesses are a lot harder to start than others, there are a lot of procedures in place that stop progress. We do however have a lot of associations that are putting pressure on our government to make it easier.

What’s your plan for creating your own job?
At the moment I am coming up with lots of different business ideas and seeing what makes the most sense. For me, it’s important that it also has a positive social impact on society though. Whatever business I do, I want it to help people.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?
Thank you for the opportunity and thank you for creating JobHack. It was a great opportunity and I really enjoyed it.

How would you improve JobHack if you were us?
I really like the challenge approach and the fact that I can do it in the comfort of my home. Keep up the good work and I look forward to trying out future versions. Because you have a global audience you might want to customise it depending on the context of where your students are located. Here in North Africa we mostly speak French so having it translated would be great!

Thank you Badra for your time.