SEVENTY-Six youths, who were not able to complete their formal education, on Sunday graduated from various skills training programmes through the Global Outreach Centre of Herstelling Assembly of God Church, East Bank Demerara.

Board member of the Herstelling First Assembly of God, Peter Abai, related that the Vocational Skills Training Institute is a training initiative started by Dr. Michelle Shivnandan some 11 years ago, after it was noted that there are many persons who needed some assistance in being employable.

“What we do is we train school dropouts and young school dropouts between the ages of 16 to 35, in vocational skills,” Abai said. These are all persons from within Herstelling and in surrounding communities.

Over the 11-year life of the programme, Abai said about 1,500 persons have benefitted from training opportunities. The training is done in areas such as Information Technology, Office Administration, Cosmetology, Sewing and Cake Decorating. These courses are certified by the Board of Industrial Training (BIT).

There is no cost attached to the programme as it is funded by the church, with assistance, from time to time, from other bodies.

Another member of the church, Sharmila Dos Santos, said social education and character development, literacy, numeracy and entrepreneurship are also taught to further enhance the employability of the participants.

She affirmed that many of these participants go on to get office-related jobs or start up their own businesses.
“They’re basically able to build their own businesses from what they learn here,” Dos Santos said, adding that the church would also connect the successful participants to businesses that are hiring.

One of the participants from this year’s programme, Emmanuel Wright, shared that he studied Information Technology and Office Administration. For him, the programme was the right balance of practical training and fairly understandable content, and as such, he was able to learn a lot.

Now possessing these skills, he said he has been able to get a job as an accounting clerk at Sterling Products and intends on using the certification he received to further propel himself academically and professionally.

Anuradna Persaud, another participant, learnt cake decorating skills. Through the three-month training, she acquired a host of skills that would enable her to open a cake-making business with one of her colleagues from the training programme.