DENVER — Denver is helping 350 of the more than 42,000 migrants who’ve arrived in Denver with a new program called WorkReady.
The initiative’s goal is to give migrants training to eventually lead to a job. On Thursday, the inaugural class received laptops as their journey through the program began. The AT&T Foundation donated the laptops, Centro de los Trabajadores is making the curriculum for English and computing, and Community College of Denver is hosting the classes.
Eleana Jimenez is enrolled in the program. She arrived from Venezuela in April.
“It's going to help me with my English classes, in the other trainings, and I have to have virtual classes,” Jimenez said. “That will help me a lot.”
Adeeb Khan, the executive director for Denver Economic Development and Opportunity, said the goal is to give migrants the skills, training and certification they need to get a job.
“For us, this is an opportunity to invest in individuals who can help us grow our economy and also get on a path to self-sustainability,” Khan said. “We know we have the workforce needs in Denver, and we want to create that pipeline of individuals allow them to be able to be work authorized and provide those skills, training and certification necessary for them to be successful entering the workforce.”
Khan said it costs about $3,000 to put each migrant through the six-month program.
“The city of Denver is providing resources into this initiative,” Khan said. “On top of that, a number of philanthropic partners, and the state of Colorado, and federal resources to help fund this.”
For the 350 migrants enrolled, it's all free. “The best thing we can do is take advantage of the opportunity they're giving us,” Jimenez said.
Now that Jimenez has the tools, she's ready to use them to fight for the future she came here for.
“Work hard, of course, because we want the training, because that's what we came for,” Jimenez said. “To work hard.”
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