When Santander was building its sugar mill in the Valley of Peace area, more than once we reported on the flood of Central American workers being brought in to work when Belizean labour was available. But, it turned out that much of that imported labour comprised certified welders – because there aren't enough of them in Belize. Sure, we have a lot of welder, but they aren't certified.

Fabrigas Belize, sought to do something about that with the help of Belize Natural Energy and the Ministry of Education.

Through the collaboration of these 3 organizations, career welders are well into a 2 week training which will see them become certified as professionals who have met standards set by the American Welding Society (AWS). Today, we stopped by to speak with the instructor about the progress they've made:

Justin Sabido - Sales Manager, Fabrigas Belize

About 3 years ago I went to all of the institutions in the country that do technical training, welding in particular and I notice that all of them needed some physical resources and human resources; physical resources being equipment and human resources being instructors that are formally trained. So all of them had the same cry that they have their welding instructors but they were not formally trained. But how could they be formally trained if he didn't have a way of doing it before? We basically are responding to this by doing this training."

Daniel Ortiz

"What will they be able to do once they get the certificate?"

Justin Sabido - Sales Manager, Fabrigas Belize

"That's the ultimate goal of this course, to give teachers the formal training and skills that they need to be able to pass it one to their students. Whether the students are novices just coming in or whether they are in the welding field for 20 or 30 years but need the formal training and need the training and technique to become certified."

"This whole training course, training the teachers, getting the students prepared, getting them certified is a part of the wider response to address the need for Belizeans to be certified so that segment of the labour market will be captured by Belizeans. That's the goal, to train our guys, get them certified, so the jobs stay at home and we get the jobs."

The training will finish on Friday, at which time these welders will be AWS certified.