U.W.I. Open Campus Also Working with Chamber of Commerce
Another MOU was signed today, this time between the UWI Open Campus and the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry. This MOU is a continuation of another MOU signed in 2014 to develop the private sector. It will see the continuation of annual trainings, seminars and sessions in several areas. News Five was at today’s MOU signing. Here’s more from the UWI Open Campus and the Belize Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Jane Bennett
Jane Bennett, Head, UWI Open Campus, Belize
“Recognizing the mandate of the UWI to develop the human capital of the region and with the Chamber of Commerce their mandate also to develop the private sector. So, in the past five – six years, we have under a previous memorandum of understanding, started that venture together where we have been training staff and members of employers around the country. We do seminars and workshops on a continuous basis via the means of an annual training schedule which we try to stick to as much as possible. And so today we are here to sign another four year MOU having mutually benefitted from the first one.”
Kim Aikman
Kim Aikman, Chief Executive Officer, BCCI
“The members of the Chamber benefits from this initiative, but also we open it to the general public. The courses are listed on our website www.belize.org but they include courses such as leadership courses, or finance for non-financial members, coaching, and performance appraisals; different kind of trainings at different levels. I can tell you that we have trained in any one year, at least, definitely more than 300 people in the private sector. What is unique is that our members are also able to say, I have this specific problem – it doesn’t fit in line with the trainings that you are offering but I have this specific problem. We would then approach the UWI and they develop a training that is company specific for that person, so it has its impact on individual companies, as well as the broader worker in the environment.”
Luz Longsworth
Dr. Luz Longsworth, Pro-Vice Chancellor and Principal, UWI Open Campus
“The University of the West Indies is in a newstrategic planning period, but we have always been ahead of the curve in Belize, in aligning the UWI Open Campus with the productive sector in Belize. The relationship that Misses Bennett and her staff and the Chamber of Commerce and Industry membership has developed is one that this MOU will expand on. We have concentrated in the first phase of the MOU on training of the membership, but we intend on deepening that relationship even more, in terms of looking at how the University in all of its components can help, assist, partner with the Chamber in many, many other areas apart from human resource development. But in areas of policy analysis, policy development, in areas of looking at economic growth.”
