In a sig­nif­i­cant mile­stone for its tech­ni­cal ed­u­ca­tion pro­gramme, 33 Civil­ian Con­ser­va­tion Corps (CCC) trainees suc­cess­ful­ly com­plet­ed a four-month au­to me­chan­ics train­ing pro­gramme re­cent­ly.

In de­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress dur­ing a grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny at the Ve­hi­cle Man­age­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (VM­COTT) in Laven­tille last Wednes­day (Oc­to­ber 30), CCC pro­gramme co­or­di­na­tor Lt Curt Jones told the grad­u­ates that they now had cru­cial roles in en­gen­der­ing pos­i­tive so­cial change in their com­mu­ni­ties.

“You are liv­ing proof that hope and hard work can carve out a path to a brighter fu­ture,” Jones told the grad­u­ates, high­light­ing the sig­nif­i­cance of their achieve­ment amid the cur­rent so­ci­etal chal­lenges.

The pro­gramme, a col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween CCC, the Min­istry of Youth De­vel­op­ment and Na­tion­al Ser­vice (MYDNS) and VM­COTT, equipped grad­u­ates with the the­o­ret­i­cal knowl­edge and prac­ti­cal skills es­sen­tial for suc­cess in the au­to­mo­tive in­dus­try, a re­lease from CCC said. Through in­ten­sive work­shop ses­sions, trainees de­vel­oped me­chan­i­cal ex­per­tise and tech­ni­cal pro­fi­cien­cy dur­ing their train­ing, it said.

Au­to me­chan­ic tu­tor Za­heer Mo­hammed said he was proud of the grad­u­ates’ ded­i­ca­tion through­out the four-month train­ing pe­ri­od.

“The pro­gramme’s fo­cus on ve­hi­cle op­er­at­ing sys­tems and col­lab­o­ra­tive work en­vi­ron­ments has pre­pared the grad­u­ates for the de­mands of mod­ern au­to­mo­tive main­te­nance and re­pair,” Mo­hammed said.

He said equip­ping the trainees with the tech­ni­cal skill rep­re­sent­ed an in­vest­ment in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s au­to­mo­tive sec­tor work­force, as they were en­hanc­ing the in­dus­try’s ca­pa­bil­i­ties through well-trained, skilled pro­fes­sion­als.

Al­so speak­ing at the event, VM­COTT CEO Natasha Prince re­in­forced the pro­gramme’s im­por­tance as a step­ping stone to greater op­por­tu­ni­ties. She ex­pressed par­tic­u­lar sat­is­fac­tion at see­ing her vi­sion of part­ner­ing with the CCC, which was con­ceived in 2017, come to fruition through this ini­tia­tive.