Highlighting Achievement, Embracing Innovation and Inspiring the Future
Public Service Day is commemorated on the twenty-third of June, annually; that’s tomorrow. But this week is being recognized as Public Service Week and since Monday activities have been held across the country to highlight the role of public officers. Today, at the parking lot of the Belize City Civic Center, various government departments set up booths to share information with the public. News Five’s Duane Moody reports.
Duane Moody, Reporting
Public Service Week is being celebrated under the theme, “Highlighting Achievement, Embracing Innovation and Inspiring the Future.” Minister of Public Service Henry Charles Usher says it is an appropriate theme that sets the mood for the achievements of the public sector over the past two years.
Henry Charles Usher
Henry Charles Usher, Minister of Public Service
“With COVID, with the economy, all of those external and internal factors that we have had to deal with in the public service and as public officers. So we are celebrating those, we are embracing the innovation. We have some new innovation coming in, the digitization of services. We are also training public officers. There is a digital transformation course going on right now and I just heard that the first module is almost completely with the first cohort and then we are moving into cohort two and cohort three really soon. There is a lot happening, a lot of it is behind the scenes at public service, but we want to use this week to celebrate and recognize those achievements.”
Several departments put up displays, highlighting for the public and those in attendance, the various services they offer. One of the booths focused on everything health.
Emir Castaneda
Emir Castaneda, Health Educator, Central Health Region
“You can come here and learn about substance abuse, counseling and any drug related, you can get information here. Then we move on to our health education and community participation bureau booth which gives us information about preventative measures. So you can get information about prevention. We have our dentist, dental health program so we have our dentist with us. A dental screening you can do it here with us and it is almost free. Partnering with us, we have the World Pediatric Project and this has to do with pediatric and kids who need assistance. They are here to offer free services as well. And then we have the mental health program for stress management.”
Over at the Labour Department’s booth, they provide services such as labor administration, inspection, trade unionism and public employment service to facilitate job placement. Employment Officer Brenda Serrano wanted to share what you need to know about your rights as an employee.
Brenda Serrano
Brenda Serrano, Employment Officer, Labour Department
“We bridge between those two entities. We want to get employers engaged in knowing the labor laws and job seekers to understand their rights as a worker. And when it comes to the employment service, when we do recruitment in-house and with other stakeholders, it is because we want to retain employment for them. And we help with guiding different employers in terms of capacity building, employer’s expectation, work ethics, code of conducts and of course the labor legislation.”
Duane Moody for News Five.
