BP and its co-venturers in the Azeri-Chirag-Gunashli (ACG), Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC), Shah Deniz (SD), and South Caucasus Pipeline (SCP) – AzACG-SOCAR, AzSD-SOCAR, AzSCP-SOCAR, TPAO, PETRONAS, AzBTC-SOCAR, Chevron, Lukoil, NICO, Statoil, Inpex, ExxonMobil, SGC Upstream, SGC Midstream, Itochu, ONGC, TOTAL, ENI - today launched a new social investment project to help enhance employment opportunities for people with disabilities in Azerbaijan.
This will be achieved by developing skills and capabilities of the targeted people through trainings and other specialised activities. The 100 participants in the project are people who have been out of formal education and recent university and vocational school graduates.
The project will partner with the Ministry of Labour and Social Protection of Population and the State Employment Centres. In addition, a group of business organizations have already committed to providing internship and employment opportunities to the 100 participants and the project plans to create a steering committee of those organisations to streamline this activity.
Along with other capabilities, the project will focus on developing English language, computer and soft skills. The participants will be grouped in accordance with their career aspirations to learn either website development/design or app/software development.
The programme will also include three motivational forums and meetings with national celebrities with disabilities who will share their experience in building their way to career success.
Gary Jones, BP’s Regional President for Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, said: “We have designed the project in such a way that will enable the participants to prepare themselves for future employment professionally, psychologically and socially. These are important elements of any trainings or educational programmes, however they require more focus when your programme is for people with disabilities. We are pleased to be able to help the participants to acquire the knowledge and develop the capabilities necessary for them to build their self-confidence and feel themselves included.”
The trainers to be involved in the project will have the Special Educational Needs Teacher Development training - a programme that provides support to teachers in any mainstream educational context where inclusion, diversity and support to learners with special or additional needs is required.
The project will be implemented by the British Council.
The total value of the project is more than 488,000 AZN with the duration of one year until end of 2018.
Notes to editors:
The success of BP’s and its co-venturers’ projects in the Caspian region includes creating tangible benefits from these projects for the people of the region. To achieve this, BP and its co-venturers implement major social investment programmes, which include educational projects, building skills and capabilities in local communities, improving access to social infrastructure in communities, supporting local enterprises through provision of access to finance and training, support for cultural legacy and sport, as well as technical assistance to public institutions.
In the first three quarters of 2017, BP and the co-venturers in BP-operated joint ventures spent about $5.7 million in Azerbaijan alone on social investment and sponsorship projects.
BP (on behalf of the co-venturers in the joint ventures that it operates) will continue their social investment initiatives in support of local capacity-building and enterprise development throughout Azerbaijan to assist the country in strengthening its economy.
BP Press Office, Baku: +994 12 599 45 57