Virtual Training in COVID-19: Zimbabwe
Kashy-Com Investments (KCI) is a Local Community Institution (LCI) that specializes in training and consultancy services. The local community institution (LCI) started using the Partners Worldwide (PW) business training curriculum in May 2013. Since then, KCI has trained 695 micro-entrepreneurs and 82 Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The advent of COVID-19 pandemic in December 2019 and the subsequent lockdowns in March- May 2020, Jan-Feb 2021, and July- August 2021 adversely affected the number of in-person trainings that KCI could conduct.
In April 2021, PW in partnership with Hope Ventures piloted a 16 training session SME hybrid training for Children of the Nations (CoTN) in Malawi. The business training focused on college and university graduates who had existing businesses and wanted to start businesses. Tendai Kashangura, the Principal Consultant of KCI was one of the facilitators in the training. With Partners Worldwide facilitating 12 training session, KCI received great exposure and a learning experience on how to conduct virtual or hybrid training.
Another opportunity to conduct a hybrid training was afforded to KCI in November 2021. This time, it was a six days Train-The-Trainer (TTT) workshop for a LCI in Cote d’ivoire called INSHEV. The TTT workshop focused on the Micro-Enterprise curriculum. The training had two English-French translators.
KCI is exploring opportunities of using virtual and hybrid training to reach out to more existing and aspiring businesspeople. The advantages of virtual and hybrid training include:
- It is cost effective
- It increases outreach breadth
- It is relatively immune to COVID-19 restrictions
Against this background, KCI is geared towards greater impact and sustainability through exploring the new horizon of virtual and hybrid training.
