News When a project run by one of the world's biggest corporations arrived in the underprivileged community where Bruna Chaves lives, offering a chance to work at Rio 2016, the 20-year-old says many of her neighbours in Jardim Sulacap in western Rio simply refused to believe it “It’s difficult to believe A free course from Coca-Cola and they’re going to offer jobs at the end,” she says “So when they found out that we were going to the Games their reaction was ‘why didn’t I do it!’” Chaves is part of the Coletivo Coca-Cola project She underwent two months of training within her community before receiving a qualification in hospitality and a job at the Games From another underprivileged suburb of Rio, Daniel Teixeira, 23, also part of the project, is also working at Rio 2016 Between 2015 and 2016, Coca-Cola trained more than 1,300 young people from 11 different communities across Rio de Janeiro While 50 of the trainees are now working for the soft drink brand at the Olympic Games, 300 have already found employment elsewhere and more than 1,000 are involved in the selection process of partner companies Making the Olympic Games as inclusive as possible has been at the forefront of organisers’  and sponsors' minds since Rio de Janeiro was awarded the event in 2009 Networking Rio “When applying to be a sponsor, Cisco promised this would be one of the most inclusive Games,” says Daniel Coslovsky, manager of business development at Cisco In 2016, the tech giant trained 300 young people to become technicians, with 100 of those now working as network technicians at Rio 2016 Participants also shadowed working professionals and received training on how to conduct themselves at interviews and within work environments Thanks to a network of ‘knowledge centres’ strategically placed throughout the city, Coslovsky says Cisco was able to make the training accessible to all the target communities Evidence from past initiatives showed that people were less likely to commit to a course that required them to take a few buses “They have a premium certification which is valuable in the marketplace,” says Coslovsky of the training, which would cost about R$8,000 (just under US$2,500) in a regular college Coca-Cola also saw the benefit of taking the project to communities by training a local educator who then oversaw the course As a final test before receiving their certifications, students were tasked with staging an event in their communities    “It’s an experience that’ll stay with me for life," Bruna Silva says "We decided to hold an event in honour of our graduation At the end of it we were really proud, like, it was us that made all of this ”