A heavy-duty operator programme under the Labour Ministry’s Board of Industrial Training (BIT) Unit in Mahdia, Region Eight has seen greater women participation.
This is the second year that the programme is being conducted in Mahdia with 25 persons in the batch, highly populated by women, the trainer, Nigel Gordon told the News Room.
“For this batch, we see more females than males. More females coming out through this programme which is nice,” Gordon said.
He noted that the programme targets persons who want to focus solely on the training and also persons who have jobs already. He said that the persons who are already working are given afternoon classes while those who are unemployed take up the morning and midday classes.
“Honestly the biggest struggle we getting right about now is timings because the majority of the people working and have kids and so the timings really messed up but other than that everything else going okay.”
“I’m here from eight to five and it gets people does come in the morning session and then it got some does come lunch and then it got some does come after,” Gordon explained.
Malini Gouveia, 18, is one of the women benefitting from the classes which she deemed to be ‘amazing’.
“Well, so far I learned a lot from it… first I was like I can’t do this but after grooving in I learned a lot,” the teen said. She is encouraging other women to also enroll in training options that are dominated by men.
Shawn Spears, 23, who is also part of the programme said he intends to use his certificate to seek employment.
“My father, he’s an operator and it inspired me so I just decide to find it to get the same experience just as him… it is most probably difficult in terms of catching any control on everything but as I continue getting the feeling for it and the idea just stick to it so just continue going with it.”
“With this certificate, I’m hoping I could fall into a perfect firm and make a career out of it,” Spears said.
Labour Minister Joseph Hamilton visited the sites on Monday when he advised the young people to make great use of the free training.
The programmes which are being held in the region for a second year are welding, heavy-duty operations, electricity, garment making and cosmetology among others.
Last year the batch who completed the course of the heavy-duty operations cleared the site earmarked for the ministry’s training center in the town. This year the welders are making an “I love Mahdia” sign which will be erected in the centre of the town. These are part of the efforts participants must make in order to give back to the community after they are trained.