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We stopped by to see the new service providers and discuss how they will be able to put these new skills to use in their jobs:

Vanessa Johnston, Training Officer - BTEC
"BTEC's mission is to provide demand industry based training. This time around we actually conducted two simultaneous trainings in very distinct areas; one of them was for our 5 star wait staff training and the other one was for the basics of home healthcare training. The wait staff training was a 3 week period, the home healthcare training was an intensive 6 weeks with an internship period and today we are proud to graduate 27 remarkable individuals. With all our trainings we have both soft skills aspects and technical skill aspects. With all of them the soft skills is preparing them for work. We usually do assessments with stakeholders, employers - to find out what they find is missing with their new hires, with their current employees. So our first week is a packet of that soft skills, developing their professionalism work ethics. For the wait staff, the technical one week training was teaching them a variation of stuff which I am impress with from table placements, napkin settings, decorations - all of those things that servers do to give that wow effect to their guests."

Nadia Aguilar, Wait Staff Graduate
"They taught me how to set tables, how to serve it and how to prepare the tables for the customers. The training was well for me, because when we use to enter restaurant we thought the way how they serve it was normal, but teaching us we know now how it should be and not just anyway to be served."

Dr. Jorge Polanco, Rep. - PAHO Belize
"When we were approached by BETEC with this initiative, we jumped at it because we saw it as an opportunity to really address some gaps in Belize, in regards to human resource capacity to provide care to be care givers and by this I have in mind I have those persons who need care who are bedridden or who are at home or perhaps maybe not necessary sick, but who are at home by themselves. The perspective that we saw is that NCD's (none communicable diseases) in Belize has a very high prevalence."

Rose Martinez-Henkis, Home Healthcare Graduate
"What built my capacity was the one-to-one basis that I had to deal with the actual people at Sister Cecilia Home and that drove me to look at myself personally as a young person and what my life could be when I become of age."

The home healthcare training program was provided by the professionals from PAHO, the Ministry of Health, the National Council on Aging and the Sister Cecilia Home for the Elderly. The Wait Staff Training was conducted by the experienced professionals in the tourism industry.