Today ACEE announced its participation in the Grow with Google Indigenous Career Readiness Program. The initiative helps prepare Native students for the workforce through digital skills training and career workshops. By providing $1 million to the Partnership With Native Americans (PWNA), Google aims to help train 100,000 Native students on digital skills and career readiness in schools by 2025.
“The Arizona Council on Economic Education is honored to be selected for the groundbreaking Grow with Google Indigenous Career Readiness Program,” said Elena Zee, President and CEO. “We are excited to partner with Google and Partnership with Native Americans to prepare our Indigenous youth with the essential digital and career skills to achieve prosperity for themselves, their families, and their community in a global economy.”
As part of Google’s commitment to supporting Native American jobseekers, the program partners with Native-serving organizations to help students develop the digital skills they need to find and secure internships and jobs that will help them build successful careers. Over the next four years, we will provide curriculum and trainers at Tribal Colleges and Universities, Native American-serving nontribal institutions, high schools, and vocational programs.
“We are excited to partner with Google to launch the Grow with Google Indigenous Career Readiness Program. PWNA appreciates Google taking the initiative to bridge the digital divide in Indian Country. The gap that exists goes beyond the cable infrastructure, hardware, internet access, and extends to the technical skills for education and employment,” said Joshua Arce, President & CEO, Partnership With Native Americans. “Google has demonstrated their willingness to meet the students where they are at, with the tools that they have, to provide a best-in-service digital training program designed to increase technical proficiencies and employable skills for Native students. Grow with Google training translates into immediate incentives and adds technical skills to a student’s digital toolbox that they can build on in the future.”
Started in 2021, the Grow with Google Indigenous Career Readiness Program provides Native serving organization career centers with funding and a semester-long in-person and online digital skills program. The program combines existing Grow with Google workshops with job seekers including design thinking, project management, and professional brand building.
Partnership With Native Americans works with Native-serving organization career centers to onboard the program. “Every student should have the opportunity to learn digital skills for today’s in-demand jobs,” said Tia McLaurin, Community Engagement Manager, Google. “We’re proud to work with the Partnership With Native Americans to bring the Google Indigenous Career Readiness Program to the Arizona Council on Economic Education to help more students prepare for the workforce and thrive as they start their careers.”
ABOUT ARIZONA COUNCIL ON ECONOMIC EDUCATION
The Arizona Council on Economic Education (ACEE) is a 501(C)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to economic and financial literacy and workforce development in Arizona. ACEE is the only statewide organization in Arizona which serves public, charter, tribal, home, private, and juvenile detention schools; has a strong, affiliated academic base with universities and community colleges; partners with the Arizona Department of Education and the Federal Reserve Bank; and prepares teachers in teaching and students in learning personal finance, economics and career readiness skills.
ABOUT GROW WITH GOOGLE
Grow with Google was started in 2017 to help Americans grow their skills, careers, and businesses. It provides training, tools, and expertise to help small business owners, veterans and military families, jobseekers and students, educators, startups, and developers. Since Grow with Google’s inception, it has helped more than eight million Americans develop new skills. Grow with Google has a network of more than 8,500 partner organizations like libraries, schools, small business development centers, chambers of commerce, and nonprofits to help people coast-to-coast.
ABOUT PWNA
Partnership With Native Americans is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization committed to championing hope for a brighter future for Native Americans living on remote, isolated and impoverished reservations. Collaborating for nearly 30 years with our reservation partners, we provide consistent aid and services for Native Americans with the highest need in the U.S. Much of our work centers around material aid, educational support and community-based services. PWNA also connects outside resources directly to reservations through its distribution network and reservation partnerships. We care about quality of life for Native Americans and respect their self-determined goals for their tribes.
