Ashley Beck and Police Scotland Youth Volunteers

Cyber crime is increasing daily, if we don’t educate and learn we won’t be able to support the next generations. We will only help them to suffer. Crime is now growing digitally, and many authorities are not aware of how cyber crimes take place. 

Ashey Beck studied at Glasgow Caledonian University, achieving an honours degree in IT. She later went onto work for IBM, but realised she wanted to use her degree and her community focus to help communities, so she left her job and went onto becoming a police sergeant at Police Scotland. Ashley didn’t stop there, she is now studying a master’s in Cyber Security.

Ashley helps to inspire many people of all ages and all backgrounds; she supports and teaches courses where the community can evolve. This helps to grow opportunities for young people and show them a world that has more opportunities.

Police Scotland Youth Volunteers (PSYV)

PSYV is a programme that has been put in places to help strengthen and inspire the young people, the Police work closely with young people to help create a safe environment for communities in Scotland.

PSYV help to assist young people who have an interest in giving back to their communities working alongside their local policing divisions but also give them an opportunity to network, support each other and gain opportunities that will help them in their futures. The young people of Scotland have helped with planting trees, packing groceries helping give back to the community and part taking in the opportunity to enrol into Cisco Networking academy courses. Over 40 young people from Scotland, Malawi and Zambia. Students are supported by Ashley Beck who is a registered networking academy instructor, they all part take in video calls every 4-6 weeks but are able to reach out for any help needed. Ashley Beck in an interview with the Police Scotland stated, "We also know women are under-represented in technology and as someone who's passionate about changing this, it's hugely encouraging to see half of those enrolled on the course are female."

And within the course half of the students that are between the ages of 14 and 23 are female, six being from Malawi and Zambia. The Networking Academy course caters for all young people from different backgrounds it helps and gives people the encouragement to grow their skills and help to network. Ashely Beck also stated: "it's fantastic to see this industry-standard training on networking and cyber security being given to young people, and the enthusiasm they have to learn. And this is what helps to motivate and support every student through the programme.

Ashley Beck and Police Scotland have done so much to ensure every young person gets an opportunity to be the best version of themselves. They have helped to inspire other cities and towns to implement the same courses too. We’re deeply thankful to all the students, teachers and volunteers that are involved in helping the next generation.

Student Testimonial: Linzi Anderson, Scotland

“Cisco has been beneficial to me as it has given me a huge confidence boost for my higher computing which I am only 1 of 2 girls in a class of 20. I am the only one in my friendship group interested in this opportunity and I am glad I took it up which ultimately adds to the number of females involved in technology. I have always loved technology. I am really enjoying the course as I am learning skills I have always wanted to learn, and I love being able to have the knowledge of how things work. I hope to use the skills that I am learning in a future career involving IT or related courses at University”.

Student Testimonial: Mbayi Richard Sunga, Zambia

“My name is Mbayi Sunga. I am 20 years old, a member of the Kabwe youth network under Environment Africa Zambia. I am studying Information Technology and am extremely enjoying my studies so far. The current course I am pursuing i.e., CCNA within PSYV with Cisco Networking Academy has helped me understand that we can have a world without borders where people from a different nation can efficiently communicate with a group of people in another country through instant messaging, video conferencing, social
media, chat rooms, a world where it is easy to share files, data, and information.

I am looking forward to advancing more in this field as I am determined and have developed a passion to come up with innovative ideas that will improve the industry. The new skills I am learning will enable me to advance my computer literacy, which will help me pass on the theoretical and practical knowledge to other young people in our community as computers are essential in our current generation”.



Here are links for more information regarding the courses and work being done in Scotland:
www.psyv.org
www.scotland.police.uk/what-s-happening/...technology-course/