A local community programme that helps underemployed or unemployed women find jobs will become a charity next month.

The Community Driven Development (CDD) programme will no longer be run by Government as of April 1, and starting this summer it will be accepting men for the first time.

“We are right now recruiting the next class of women to start effective April,” chairman Juan Prado said. “When we get those women up and running, we’re then going to shift our focus to include a men’s group.

“The timing of that, in part, will be a function of funding.”

Mr Prado, who previously chaired the Bermuda Sloop Foundation, explained that the programme was never meant to remain a departmental policy and that budgetary concerns have led to it becoming a charity now.

He added that the charity needs about $500,000 to run two women’s groups this year and an extra $160,000 to incorporate a men’s cohort.

Mr Prado, who has been meeting with exempt companies to raise funds for the charity and is looking for volunteers to help him approach local businesses, said they will also host local fundraising events.

The CDD programme — established in 2013 by the Department of Human Affairs in conjunction with the Bermuda Women’s Council — aims to strengthen skills, competencies and abilities of unemployed or underemployed women to help them become financially independent.

The programme works in partnership with the Bermuda College, the Adult Education School, Mirrors, Career Pathways, Work Force Development and the Ace Women’s Forum to find jobs for the participants and to prepare them for a career.

“Many of these individuals haven’t graduated from high school and we want to make sure that they can have the minimum amount of reading, mathematical and other skills that’ll be necessary for them to perform adequately in their jobs,” Mr Prado said.

A total of 34 women have been certified by the programme since its inception — 16 are employed full-time or part-time and six women are enrolled at the Bermuda College.

“We work through all the things that perhaps others take for granted, that they haven’t been exposed to, and we want to make sure that they understand how that professional environment works,” Mr Prado said.

But he added that the community’s support in providing opportunities — in particular job shadowing and employment — is invaluable.

Mr Prado said that job shadowing is a win for the participants, who gain valuable exposure, and a win for the employer “because they can assess the quality of that individual without having to pay for them, and decide whether they want to extend them a permanent job after they graduate, but also because what we seek from them is input as to what additional opportunities may exist for us to work with that student while we still have them within our programme.”

He added: “What we want to impress on the community is that when they have gone through CDD they have been certified and that certification is something we hold really dear.”

“When that employer hires a CDD certified student they know what they are getting.”