a vision for the future of vocational training

Eminus Academy started out as an effort between Cherie Enns, our founder and director, and the United Nations Human Settlements Programme, otherwise known as UN Habitat, to provide vocational training to youth in the developing world.  Starting in 2013, the partners launched pilot courses which were designed to investigate the feasibility of creating an international online school which would offer vocational training to students around the world.  Working as part of UN Habitat's Urban Youth Fund E-learning Programme, which is designed to facilitate access to professional training for youth around the world, the academy provided hundreds of students around the world with the opportunity to gain valuable skills which they could use in order to gain employment or even create their own employment opportunities.

Cherie Enns, our Founder and Director, speaking at an event at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford, British Columbia.

Five of our graduates from the Social Enterprise course.

Graduates from the courses that Eminus Academy originally offered.

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Slow and steady expansion

By 2015, three courses were offered by Eminus Academy, Social Enterprise, Community Mapping and Urban Agriculture.  In total, those courses saw the admission of over 190 students, from over 30 countries, to Eminus Academy, with more than 300 wishing to learn more about our school.  Our students' education were as varied as their nationalities, with some having only completed some high-school education while others had a graduate degree.

We expanded again that year, offering a new course—Proposals, Partnerships and Community Impact, which more than 50 students registered in.  In that single year, enrolment rose to 200 students across our four courses, and of those 200 students, more than half of them graduated with a certificate and many more being inspired to continue their education.  Our students began to put their certificates to work, with Eminus financing its students' endeavours which led to many small projects being approved.

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Eminus today

In late 2016, Eminus Academy began to rethink its approach to e-learning.  Having learned a lot from the last few years and from the feedback that students and graduates provided, we sought to completely rework our school.  We increased the amount of courses we offered, now offering more than ten, we changed the way that we interacted with students, designing a whole new web experience for them and finally, we decided to offer our services to more than seventy nations around the world.  By partnering with numerous organizations, Eminus Academy hopes to positively impact change in the world, one person at a time.