The remnants of Danville’s past are something of a metaphor for the small city in Southern Virginia. Old brick factories dot the shores of the Dan River, several of them undergoing conversions into hip, new apartment complexes. Boutiques occupy what used to be mom-and-pops that once served the town’s blue-collar workforce. Coffee shops and cafés sit on the ground floor of old warehouses throughout the downtown area. Banners hang from lamp posts with imagery of a computer circuit bordering the word “Reimagine,” telling visitors where this old tobacco-and-furniture town in the heart of race-car country is trying to head.
At the edge of Danville sits the Institute for Advanced Learning and Research. Its small campus of a handful of modern, glass-sided buildings is tucked neatly at the entrance of a business park. Working in concert with Danville Community College, the Institute—referred to as “IALR” in internal shorthand—is geared toward the transformation and growth of Southern Virginia’s economy through a focus on its five divisions: advanced learning, applied research, manufacturing advancement, economic development, and conference services.
A recently added sixth element is the Accelerated Training in Defense Manufacturing program, or “ATDM,” a program that was first conceived in 2018 and started in June 2021, when the United States Department of Defense (DoD) partnered with the strategic consulting firm Spectrum Group on an advanced-workforce-development pilot program.
Within ATDM, a unique phenomenon has taken root and become one of the program’s defining traits: Most of the program’s graduating classes have included Afghan refugees, many of whom escaped their country as it fell to the Taliban in mid-August 2021.
The program calls these students “Afghan Allies,” at least two of whom have since began working with the program as translators and recruiting coordinators for other refugees in search of work.
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www.fastcompany.com/91174064/danville-virginia-workforce-training-afghan-refugees