YEP MED in Egypt: testimony from a young trainee who got a job in the port sector
The YEP MED project has been launched to achieve a strategic goal which is training for employment. The Project adopts a strategy for consolidating the academic and technical education with professional training and practical experience based on the market’s needs. All partners, including the Damietta Port Authority and the Port Training Institute (PTI), have been working seriously to improve the opportunities of our young people to find proper jobs in the field of maritime transport and logistics. Mohamed Ghanem is one of the students who managed to take advantage of participating in the YEP MED project to find a job in the Port of Damietta. He is sharing his journey, starting from his application for the YEP MED course and finishing with his appointment to one of the companies within the Damietta port community.
First of all, I did not find the scholarship, but the scholarship found my way through my family, who advised me to apply for it. Fate knew very well which way I should take.
In March 2021, I started applying and taking the English language & IQ tests, and I was surprised that I got first place, which made me gain enough confidence to feel that I'm able to do something here.We started by studying port logistics, supply chains, and stakeholders in the port community. This training was the first stage of the program (VT1) conducted by two partners, Damietta Port and the AAST (Arab Academy for Science and Technology).
After that, the Academy did a test for us, where we were three groups studying the same thing, and each group consisted of thirty members, and the goal was to get the top ten from each group to form a new group studying the second and third stages (VT2 & VT3).
Thank God I was among the top-ten.
Thus, we progressed to the VT2&3 with Escola Europea, lead beneficiary of YEP MED in Spain, and we began to study international trade and everything related to sustainability in this field and all those topics. We made teams for the eastern region, which in my group consisted of Egypt and Jordan. Also, the western region consisted of Spain and France. We made teams with the same name for each region.
The Escola Europea tested us by conducting and presenting two import and export operations through the Click and Cargo platform which was an ERP(Enterprise Resource Planning) system for freight forwarding, and voting began to choose the best group in the East and the best group in the West. Our team (APRICOT East) consisted of five members and I was the leader of the team.
And we were the winner in the east region and also when we held a competition for the best team for the whole program from the two regions. Our team was also the best thanks to Asmaa, Faris, Sarah and Jihad, and myself.
After that, thanks to God, and then the YEP MED program, I had the opportunity to take an internship in an IT company, which is ISFP company working at Damietta Port, and I trained there as a UX Designer (User Experience Designer), and I also had experience in programming. I got a full-time job months ago in the same company after completing the internship.
Now I am working on a project which is a platform that brings together Egypt's ports in the same place, and it will be the future platform for those dealing with the ports sector. Also, in the next plan, I will develop the new Damietta Port Authority website.
I have achieved part of what I aspire to and this would not have happened without God and this scholarship from YEP MED that drew my way in terms of academic training related to international trade in the port sector and then getting a real opportunity to apply my technical skills (as a former programmer and current UX Designer) with the knowledge I gained from the program. I am grateful to the YEP MED training programme
Mohamad Ghanem - YEP MED Student
Mohamed is one of the success stories of the YEP MED project. Such stories encourage us to continue working together with our partners to help our students realize their dreams.