YMCA starts job training programme for youths

Starting today, several Belize City young people began a job-training programme designed to help them get better jobs. Through the Organisation of American States, for the past three years, the Young Men Christian Association of Belize has been offering entry-level job skills training to the unemployed. This year, the Workplace Preparedness Training Course will run for six weeks and will include both workplace interaction skills and computer interactive skills. YMCA’s Director, Carolyn Genitty, says the programme targets high school aged students who do not have any jobs or may have dropped out of school. Genitty says while the programme does not promise job placement at the end of the course, participants get hands-on experience through an internship programme.

Carolyn Genitty, Director, YMCA

“There is an aspect for job placement, but just for an internship aspect of it. We’re not guaranteeing jobs, but we’re providing them with the opportunity or the entry-level skills to get in. Because a lot of the jobs are requiring that they have basic computer, or that they know how to write a basic letter, or that they have general customer care, even if it’s a secretary or receptionist job, which some of them have not been exposed to. So then they don’t have the skills and are not capable of applying. There’s also a part where they finish with a resume. So they actually have a resume to present, where some businesses ask for it, but the students, or the unemployed that are out there are not capable of applying because they don’t have that, or they have to pay for it at Angelus Press and if they’re unemployed, most of them don’t have the money to do that.”

The course is taking place at the University of Belize. According to Genitty, interested persons can still apply for the programme as there is still space available.