20 persons qualified in drone surveillance through BIT

Three women are among twenty persons who are qualified in drone surveillance, offered for the first time by the Labour Ministry’s Board of Industrial Training (BIT).

It was disclosed that ninety -nine others also graduated from BIT programmes. The ceremony was hosted at the Windjammer Hotel, Georgetown, on Tuesday. BIT revealed that 34 males and 65 females graduated having completed training in cosmetology, interior decoration, commercial food preparation and joinery.

Labour Minister, Joseph Hamilton, disclosed that the courses are life changing and offer persons the opportunity to fulfil life goals regardless of their circumstances. “These programmes we do are life changing programmes. We don’t look for qualifications. None of BIT programmes ask for qualifications because we know that many people could not end where they want it to end because of circumstances of life, and that is what BIT is for, to ensure that people can once again dream, to ensure that people can know once again that they can do things that people said they cannot do,” Minister Hamilton explained.

In media related interviews with several participants, they noted that the training courses will help them to elevate in life.  “I’m able to fly a drone with my place of employment which is the Civil Defence Commission. So I must commend the Board of Industrial Training for this training that we would’ve received,” Sadia Roberts, one of the three women in the drone surveillance course said.

She added, “I am able to venture in a new area, I am now able to do something more technical per say I now can go elsewhere and use this skill I would’ve gotten. I know that you won’t find a lot of women doing this, at least not to my knowledge, and I know in our batch we have three and so it has done something very interesting for me.” Joseph Lovell, another drone surveillance graduate, said, “It was very pertinent and informative. It would pay a great good for me and my colleagues. We will be the first persons trained as drone pilots in Guyana to make ourselves marketable when the opportunity show its face. I would actually encourage the youths of today, BIT has a lot of courses, you don’t have to pay anything and I think they should jump on the band wagon and get to these courses- try to elevate themselves.”

Meanwhile, Loraine Gonsalves also shared similar sentiments on how the programme has impacted her life. “I really wanted this certificate and when I heard about it, I just had to take the opportunity to you know at least do something for once in my life so it impacted good to me.”

It was noted that as Government continues to make every effort to upskill the country’s human resources, persons are encouraged to take advantage of BIT’s free training courses as the agency aims to train over 4,000 citizens this year. Further it was noted that participants of the programme can utilise the ministry’s job bank to gain employment countrywide.