Giving Compass' Take:

• Elisa Birnbaum reports that Gaza's GGateway is helping women who already have IT skills find work to address the unique problem of Gaza: a skilled workforce without access to jobs.

• How can philanthropy support work opportunities for skilled workers in Gaza? What does the ongoing conflict mean for the long-term sustainability of donor efforts? 

• Learn more about the conflict.

How to battle looming unemployment? That’s the question motivating the team at GGateway, a social enterprise in Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. Close to 70 percent of the approximately 1,000 students who graduate each year from IT programs in the Gaza Strip struggle with unemployment. It’s an especially concerning statistic when one takes into account that 45 percent unemployment is the general norm.

That’s where GGateway comes in, the first social enterprise in Gaza designed to combat the continuing challenge of unemployment in the IT sector. As one of its founders, Marilyn Garson helped bring the project to launch in 2013 with the support of UNRWA.

“What’s particularly interesting about Gaza is that it’s not underdeveloped,” says Garson; “it’s just trapped.” It has a highly educated youth and workforce (Gazans have high rates of literacy), has an entrepreneurial tradition and is replete with possibilities. People are bilingual, cosmopolitan and highly skilled.

Gaza Gateway was established to help IT graduates become employable through outsourcing and opportunities to refine their skills.

The IT unemployment rate is the highest among all graduates in Gaza, says Rasha Abu Safieh, GGateway co-founder and capacity-building manager. The number of unemployed women is even higher—sitting at 92 percent—which is why the original idea was to target only the female demographic

Read the full article about IT professionals in Gaza by Elisa Birnbaum at YES! Magazine.