CodersTrust: Teaching you freelancing the right way

It was a sunny afternoon. Aklima just returned home after attending tuitions. Suddenly, her father called and informed her that he would not be able to bear the cost of her education anymore. 

Her father had suffered losses in business and was in financial straits. But for Aklima that was barely a consolation as she wanted to carry on her education in a private university in the capital.

It took her quite some time to fathom the fact that she wouldn't be able to pay for her university semesters. After the unpleasantness sank in, she started looking for options to make some money so that she could bear her own cost. It was then that she learned about Coderstrust, which was offering basic courses on data entry at free of cost. 

"It was 2015 and I did not know much about freelancing back then. Yet, one thing I knew clearly that if I can learn this, I would be able to continue my studies. So, I grabbed the opportunity and enrolled myself on that very day. Since then, I did not have to look back. And now within a few years, I will be a dental technician," said Aklima Akter, a student of United Care Institute of Medical Technology.

Just like Aklima, CodersTrust Bangladesh has supported many of its students to fulfil their dream and tried to make their path smooth. It is a multinational company and a specialised platform which has blended "Learn & Earn" for people. It brushes up globally demanded skills of its students to earn money online and find jobs or improve careers. 

In 2019 CodersTrust launched a project called Women's Skills Developments for Freelancing Marketplaces (WSDFM) to train 1,000 female students with 100% scholarship.

CodersTrust Bangladesh was founded in 2015 by Bangladeshi-American philanthropic business leader Aziz Ahmad and a Danish army captain named Ferdinand Kearwolf, with a dream to create a stage that provides professional courses to skill up. It is a Global Skill Development Institute, working with international development agencies like UNDP, World Bank, Danida, and Dutch foundation. It operated different projects in 11 countries including India, Malaysia, Poland, Kosovo and Kenya. 

Till now, it is the only and the largest international skill development institute in Dhaka. It has four branches in Dhaka and around 120 core members are working there to support the students. It offers more than 20 different professional courses on-campus and online, all over Bangladesh. 

Among all the courses Graphic Design, Responsive Web Design, Digital Marketing, Accounts Management System, Content Writing, Advance Excel, Facebook Marketing and Web Development are the most popular ones.

Usually, the fees of its regular courses range between Tk 6,000 to Tk15,000, after numerous scholarships up to 70% to 80%. Students, graduates, jobholders, housewives or retirees- anyone who is interested can take its courses. It offers many free courses throughout the year, partnering with different NGOs or organizations to skill up people. 

Till now, around 50,000 students have taken their courses and most of them have achieved success. CodersTrust believes that this success could have been achieved for supporting its students in the long run. One of Coderstrust's students Rakibul Hassan has shared his success story and how he has changed his profession with the help of CodersTrust. 

"Actually, I was not enjoying my work as a civil engineer. After three years, finally I decided to switch my career and become a digital marketer. Now, I am a freelancer and also owning an agency where I have recruited people. In this journey, I got full support from CodersTrust. Even after two years, if I call them now and ask for any advice, they are very keen to help," explained Rakibul.

Md. Ataul Goni Osmani, country director of CodersTrust Bangladesh, shared its core values. "Unlike other institutions, we care and support our students for their lifetime. We don't work to maximise the profit, we work to change our trainees lives. Under the leadership of Mr. Aziz Ahmad, Chairman CodersTrust Bangladesh is working to create a sustainable impact in the society. 

"Our focus is to ensure quality service and build more skilled people, especially women. We consider women the fittest choice for this freelancing profession. Hence, we have special scholarships and even free courses for women," he also added. 

In 2019 CodersTrust launched a project called Women's Skills Developments for Freelancing Marketplaces (WSDFM) to train 1,000 female students with 100% scholarship.  

Whereas pandemic has affected a lot of people, it could not stop them. Rather, it has seen a spike in the number of students. So, it has continued its classes on digital platforms. 

In its courses, it tries to ensure the maximum success rate at each batch. "A success ratio of over 60% is our target to achieve during the course. If we can achieve that primarily, we put emphasis on increasing more gradually. Later, our career advisor team focused on consistency and support to students," added Osmani.

However, students are expecting more support from CodersTrust after completing their courses.

Imtiaz Hossian, head of business development said, "Two different teams titled: career advisors and student affair teams are always there to support our students. Yet, students knock their respective mentors during midnight some time we could not ensure top notch service, due to some unavoidable reasons.

However, if someone informs us, we observe those words and try to sort out things as soon as possible."

While sorting out the ways, it is planning to expand its branches in divisional cities at first and then in district level. CodersTrust is developing an online learning platform so that both national and international students can enrol to different courses easily and turn into skilled manpower. 

It is also proposing to include skill developing courses in our national curriculum with an intention to make our citizens skilled from an early age.