Twenty young women who are the first batch of scholarship recipients from the First Lady’s Scholarship initiative, yesterday graduated from a one-week training programme with the Atlantic Alliance Maritime and Offshore Training Institute (AAM&OTI).
The graduates who hail solely from villages within Region One, underwent training in basic safety training and ship security awareness programmes, which includes firefighting and fire prevention, personal survivor techniques, first aid, and personal safety and social responsibility. At the small graduation ceremony held at the institute located at Friendship on the East Bank of Demerara, Director of the AAM&OTI, Miranda Thakur-Deen, remarked that she had signed a Memorandum of Understanding some two years ago where she pledged to provide free educational courses to young woman. She then reached out to the First Lady’s Office where the decision to enroll the first batch of scholarship recipients was made.
According to one of the programme lecturers, Captain Hassan Fooler, the young women were fixed on learning basic ways on how to stay safe during a fire and also while on a ship. He noted that the certificate which they received yesterday is internationally recognized since it was done in collaboration with the Standard of Training Certification and Watchkeeping (STCW) convention.
“…So this is the basic safety training in general plus ship security… so they learnt the knowledge of basic study of how to use the safety equipment on board… all of the courses are certified under the STCW Convention… so our certificate is internationally accredited and recognized so it can work worldwide.”
Meanwhile, three of the graduates expressed how grateful they were for the opportunity, what they learnt, and what their experience was like.
Novia Clarkson, who emerged the best graduating student said, “The programme entailed basically safety and health and ship security awareness, basic safety and health and was focused on first aid, like the need of if someone is to get CPR, what is it you do, the type of things that you should always have in your first aid kit… it also had fire safety like in the case of a fire what do you do in the early stage and how to eliminate it, what are the components need to start a fire. When it came to personal survival, it basically dealt with the case of if you are at sea and if you have to abandon the ship, like what are the processes you go about to do… it is very important because with this certificate I can now go ahead and further myself at being a better person and get a job.”
Another young woman, Angelica Martin noted, “We had some tough times of course but no matter the trials I am happy that we all have successfully completed this journey… it is very important because in the hinterland we’re not given so much opportunities.”
“…I learnt how to survive while a ship could be on fire, I learned to jump overboard, it was a bit scary but it was good… I feel great for this opportunity because it’s once in a lifetime for me as a female… we did the training as well as the practical,” said Fiona Solomon who was one of the graduates.
First Lady of Guyana, Arya Ali, yesterday congratulated the 20 young women and told them that they were lucky to have been the first batch to benefit from the maritime training and further charged them to take up careers in the fields which have been dominated by men.
“You are extremely fortunate to be the first batch of women to be graduating from this institute through our scholarship programme… you are now qualified to benefit from a number of opportunities in many of the new and emerging sectors and industries in our country in oil and gas, in maritime and offshore and even construction logistics…”
