Abandoned call centre to be repurposed as Tuschen Training Centre

The Government will be transforming an abandoned call Centre at Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo into a Training Centre for the Board of Industry and Training (BIT).

According to the Department of Public Information, the Training Centre will impart marketable skills to persons in Essequibo Islands-West Demerara (Region Three) in the area of information and communications technology (ICT) and others.

BIT Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Mr. Richard Maughn disclosed that some of the programmes will include website designing and application development.

Other programmes may include cake decoration, cosmetology and sewing.

The agency is also considering expanding the services to include residents from Region Two, since the building lies close to the Essequibo River which borders the regions.

The CEO said the Centre will cater for the development of youth, single parents and retrenched workers.

Meanwhile, Minister of Labour, Joseph Hamilton explained that construction of the building had started under the previous PPP/C Government, but it was mostly inoperable during the Coalition Administration.

Following the passage of the 2020 Emergency Budget, DPI reported that the Labour Ministry moved immediately to determine how to rehabilitate and re-establish the building as the Tuschen Training Centre.

“In our budget proposal we have some resources budgeted to bring to this building, such as computers and all the other [equipment] and we hope to start procuring them in the next couple of weeks so we can start,” Minister Hamilton was quoted saying.

The building is likely to be ready for usage by 2021; however, Minister Hamilton hopes training could start sooner.

“Our intention is to see if we can run some programmes before the end of the year, that is what we’re pushing for,” he said, adding that the building already has most of the necessary infrastructure.