Providing high quality and sustainable continuous training to youth and professionals

In Haiti, insufficiently trained staff is lacking, preventing entrepreneurs and private and public institutions alike from reaching their full potential and improving their performance. This is partly due to the lack of training centres and other educational institutions capable of offering a wide-range of relevant, high quality and work-oriented training programmes for target groups with diverse profiles and prior levels of knowledge and skills. In March 2012, IPC set off to do just that by setting up a professional training centre named “ProUniQ” in cooperation with Quisqueya University, Haiti’s largest and most popular non-public higher education institution. This was supported by a development partnership with the German government through sequa gGmbH under the develoPPP.de programme, an initiative fostering public-private partnerships.

IPC set up a financially sustainable training institution integrated within the structures of the university, thereby benefitting from its resources and infrastructure. Together with a locally recruited team, IPC’s experts assessed training needs of different sectors, developed and updated the strategy of the training centre, designed and adapted procedures and processes for training management, ensured financial sustainability through a market-oriented pricing model, hired and supervised local staff, selected, trained and monitored a pool of trainers and designed and delivered training programmes.

The centre’s activities

For professionals, ProUniQ provides several open training programmes composed of different modules, in topics such as Project Management, Finance, Human Resources, Leadership & Management, Environment and Energy, Marketing and Sales. The centre designed and implemented a USAID-support construction programme as part of the LEVE project. Jointly with the Rotary Clubs of Wall Street NY and of Delmas-Aeroport in Haiti, IPC supported the Entrepreneurship Camp, an initiative of the Lufthansa Help Alliance, which since its first edition has enabled 50 Haitian entrepreneurs to participate in and intensive training and mentoring programme. Tailor-made in-house trainings and other HR events are provided to business clients. The centre’s staff also consults HR departments and management to support them in developing strategies, implement change management processes, and establish or execute staff development programs. In addition, ProUniQ directed an offer to young graduates and graduating students, in the form of short trainings and longer programmes focused on employability skills. In 2015, ProUniQ organised a summer programme on efficient resource management with the support of the Digicel Foundation and the German embassy in Haiti. By April 2017, ProUniQ had delivered over 200 trainings and trained more than 2,500 individuals.