Ajira Digital Program review (3 thing I learned from my experience there)

The Ajira Digital Program was launched by Jubilee government. It was meant to introduce young people to online work where they could get training and mentorship from the government employed digital experts for free.

Since it was launched, government’s reports indicate that the program has taken around KSH. 250 million of taxpayers money and around KSH. 100 million of donations from other non-governmental organizations that believe in the project.

This is the honest review from a someone who have tried that path.

My experience with Ajira Digital Program

How I learnt about Ajira Digital Program

I learnt about Ajira Digital Program on Twitter just before the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic.

At that time I was desperately looking for a breakthrough in various online job platforms. I had unsuccessfully tried article and academic writing, blogging, affiliate marketing, and Aim Global.

When I had about the program, I was excited that the breakthrough I had been looking for was now at the doorstep.

I enrolled for the program without giving it a second thought.

How to register on Ajira Digital Program

The registration process is conducted online. All you need is to register an online account on Ajira Digital online platform and proceed from there.

On the platform, there are several options.

According to the above screenshot, you can get trained either physically or online but the reality is that you can only be trained physically, this is what I learnt when I registered.

Together with some of the successful applicants we started our training in one of the Ajira centers (most of these centers are currently idle).

Ajira Digital Program course

Before the beginning, we were given a hint of what our course entails and according to the hint, we were to learn the following skills on by the end of the course;

• Transcription
• Data Management
• Writing
• Various computer applications

Apart from undertaking these important courses, we were also informed about a mentorship program that was to ensure that we easily found a breakthrough in the online market using our newly gained skills. The program looked perfect on paper.

The training was to last 1 month but it ended after one week. What we learned during this whole period was, how to create an Upwork account.

After being guided on how to create an Upwork account, the ‘mentors’ took our phone numbers claiming that they will begin the mentorship program in a few days only to block us on all their communication platforms.

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The government says that they have training hubs across the country with “experts” offering training and mentorship but the real issue on the ground is different according to this observation I made when I enrolled for the same program.

The government also says that they have successfully trained over 250,000 people through the program who earn more than 100k a month. This is somehow far from reality as this program is not run well at the lowest level where the citizens/youths should benefit the most.

In short, these are the three things I learned from the whole ordeal;

• The process is clouded with corruption at the bottom (training centers). I don’t know about the top. I have never been there.
• There is a lot of favoritism. Like one of those who we were ‘trained’ with miraculously got job there as a ‘mentor’. He is now earning around 80K per month.
• The program is not worth your time.