Government To Offer Carpentry Training
Yesterday [Oct 14] Minister of Works and Engineering Derrick Burgess announced a new Government initiative designed to offer training in woodwork and carpentry.
Participants in the programme will follow a structured curriculum that incorporates elements of the NCCER training programme. In addition, they are given the opportunity to pursue their GED qualifications and to participate in the Mirrors Programme.
Minister Burgess highlighted the social benefits saying “Programmes such as the Woodworks Carpentry Training Initiative are crucial to the Island’s efforts to provide solutions for those persons who might otherwise follow a path leading to unsatisfactory social behaviour, including criminal activity.
“Information collected by the Department of Child and Family Services identifies a number of young men who are at risk for joining a gang or who are already involved in a gang. Available information also suggests that many of these young men are eager to pull themselves away from a gang, but are unable to do so without support.”
The brainchild of this initiative, Mr Alma Hunt, has been in the carpentry business for 30 years and had completed a teacher’s training course offered through the National Centre for Construction, Education and Research.
Minister Burgess’s full statement follows below
Good Afternoon,
I am delighted to announce a new initiative, the Woodworks Carpentry Training Initiative, supported with funding provided through the Ministry of Works and Engineering and the Ministry of Labour, Home Affairs and Housing.
Mr. Alma Hunt, the brainchild of this initiative, has been in the carpentry business for 30 years. In 2004, Mr. Hunt successfully completed a teacher’s training course offered through the National Centre for Construction, Education and Research (NCCER) and the following year received a grant enabling him to do work with youngsters at the Co-Ed Facility in St. George’s.
The young participants not only gained skills in carpentry, but also developed social skills that enhanced the likelihood that they would become more productive citizens.
During fiscal 2008/2009, the initiative moved to its current location at Southside, St. David’s. The Department of Child and Family Services agreed to provide most of the trainees for this initiative along with professional staff.
The Woodworks Carpentry Training Initiative is committed to providing a training system in the carpentry trade that is nationally recognized and marketable. The trainees who successfully complete this programme will be prepared to enter the workforce with a well developed work ethic and a high skills level.
These trainees will also be well placed to enter institutes of higher learning specializing in the trades. It is important that Government render support for an organization that strives to improve the skills levels of young people and equips them to enter the workforce with confidence.
Participants in the programme follow a detailed and structured curriculum that incorporates elements of the NCCER training programme. In addition, they are given the opportunity to pursue their GED qualifications and to participate in the Mirrors Programme within the Ministry of Culture and Social Rehabilitation.
It is to be noted that the programme also provides summer time training for children aged 11-14, with the provision that their training does not impede on the training of the older participants, the initiative’s priority consideration.
Programmes such as the Woodworks Carpentry Training Initiative are crucial to the Island’s efforts to provide solutions for those persons who might otherwise follow a path leading to unsatisfactory social behaviour, including criminal activity.
Information collected by the Department of Child and Family Services identifies a number of young men who are at risk for joining a gang or who are already involved in a gang. Available information also suggests that many of these young men are eager to pull themselves away from a gang, but are unable to do so without support.
The Woodworks Training initiative has demonstrated that it is able to address this particular need.
Finally, this programme is a prime example of joined up Government – Ministries working together to enhance the lives of those most in need in our community.
The Ministry of Labour, Home Affairs and Housing and the Ministry of Works and Engineering join the Ministry of Culture and Social Rehabilitation in expressing confidence that the Woodworks Carpentry Training Initiative will continue to prosper under the inspired stewardship of Mr. Hunt who will no doubt set a path of opportunity for these young people to acquire skills which will enable them to transform their lives and the community.
Thank you.
Is this for young men who would like to make this there trade.
What a load of crap……. Yes I said it.
No disrepect to Mr. Hunt. As for paragraph 9 this leaves me wondering out loud.
Construction is at a minimal and most major contstrucion in this day and age are without ‘woodwork’. Just a bit of trim here and there, cheap door cassings and entrance ways. Woodwork is for the ones that can afford it. Expensive and add deccor too the room. I worked here in the US for a major mill in Virginia and can attest that 90% of woodwork went into homes and cheap deccor in resturants.
It’s big money and the cost of the differant woods is passed on along with the cost of milling it, shaping it, transporting it can be expensive.
No big homes are being built and Bermuda Cedar is out of the question and imported raw material is blah blah blah………
It’s good to see some approach being made but this is not the answer. Why not teach how to make cement and lay brick/block………………………Irony.
Answers lie right on the seaweed engulphed beaches and coves and harbors. The reefs and beyond. It’s there in your tidal face.
Teach a Man to fish there will be no ‘long lines’…………………………
The photo had me going there for a minute. I thought it was Ewart in his garage with cedar but then a closer look revealed it was some type of Mahognay….( eyes getting old but the grain looks right)
@Terry
Did you know that concrete forming is carpentry? Carpenters do concrete work such as finishing as well. The two trades go hand in hand. So get your facts straight before making your self look like an idiot.
@ Being Frank
Terry has a very valid point. You must realise that this training does not qualify them to actually do anything. It only brings them closer. This is no better than a a secondary school D&T class.
Sounds like a pretty sharp intiative.
Lets just hope some of the young’uns take advantage of it for as they say you can lead a horse to water…
Frank, if I am an “idiot” then so be it. I assume that you know much about the subject. So do I.
I refer/erd to the information above. I can assure you that your comments are related but that is not the subject.
When you train in a field there are basics. The subject is “Carentry Training” not how to make cemment, push a barrow, and watch how it is done to form a cast et al.
Personal attacks are not warrented.
I have a Phd in physics and that makes me a failure because I know nothing about genes that relate to growth of hair around your balls?
Buy a Mac or eat one.
“genes that relate to growth of hair around your balls” – ahhhh the final frontier!
why are u all so stupid when i asked a simple question.Do u have a trade out there to offer the young men i am inquiring about.
An unemployed High School graduate with Diploma in general woodwork who wishes to continue his education but can not find his way out of Cameroon Africa.