Ginigoada gives trade skills training to 489 people

A TOTAL of 489 participants of the Ginigoada basic trade skills course received their certificates during a graduation ceremony in Lae, Morobe, yesterday.
The participants did 16 courses which were facilitated by 14 different trainers from different organisations.
The courses were for a month and involved basic accounting, introduction to MYOB, basic computing, carpentry, driving, electrical, excavator operator, forklift operator, garments and sewing, motor mechanic, ports and shipping, panel beating and spray, plumbing and metal works, sales and merchandising, tourism and hospitality and welding.
Programme coordinator Don Savi said people in communities needed such skills to help support themselves. “Ginigoada is like a bridge that connects the unfortunate, the ones that could not make it into the education system of PNG,” he said.
“With the funding by AusAid, we had the opportunity to help the unfortunate receive certificates that will help them to progress in their communities, through the skills they learn.
“We have participants from all the districts in Morobe, and even Bougainville, Madang and East Sepik.
Savi said people in rural areas in Morobe have shown their interest in the courses but due to funding constraints, the courses were not available in some areas.
“People want us to go to rural areas but sometimes we say no because of the logistics problems we are facing and also the locality of the place,” he said.
“If there is good funding from local authorities and the private sectors the programmes will benefit most people in rural areas.
“The main challenge we faced is the lack of support from our local authorities, but we managed to run all our programmes throughout all the districts.”Savi said that about 20,000 had completed the course between 2014 and 2016 and for the period between 2017 and 2018, “there should be around 30,000 graduates with basic skills training”.