Marcus Garvey Skills Centre to Open Next Month

Work is advanced on the Marcus Garvey Skills Training Centre, in St. Ann’s Bay, which is slated to be opened next month.
The project is being funded by the St. Ann Parish Council and according to Mayor of St. Ann’s Bay, Councillor Delroy Giscombe, “we are moving at a very fast pace because it is our intention to have the facility ready by the end of March.”
The centre is expected to provide training for unskilled youth in St. Ann, and with the HEART Trust/NTA on board, certification will be provided for participants, once they have successfully completed their training courses.
According to Mayor Giscombe, the council decided to build the skills centre, “because we want to get our unskilled young people to become involved in something that will bring about positive outcomes. We would like to see them become productive citizens in the society”.
Director with responsibility for enterprise-based training at the HEART Trust, Grace McLean, commended the parish council for moving to establish the skills training centre.
She noted that the facility was “strategically positioned because it is located on the north coast belt and in light of the developments that will be taking place in the hospitality sector in the area, we can have this centre training persons, who can be fed directly into the hospitality industry”.
She indicated that the Runaway Bay HEART Hotel and Training Institute would provide support to the facility. “We are happy to be on board this project and we will do whatever is necessary to ensure that it becomes a success,” Mrs. McLean stated.
She is appealing to unskilled persons in the parish to take advantage of the training opportunity provided by the new facility. She noted that it was only through projects of this sort, that the skills base of Jamaicans would be improved, “and ultimately, we should see improvement in the productivity of the country and the economy in general.”