Youths benefit from 3-year technical courses training program

About 70 youths from Mombasa County and its environs have benefited from a three year technical courses training courtesy of Mombasa Go Kart-Company (funfair joint) and Severin Sea Lodge Beach hotel.

The cohorts at the vocational training center are undertaking technical courses in electrical, plumbing, masonry, carpentry and joinery, welding and fabrication both in theory and practical lessons.

This Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) by the two companies is geared towards addressing unemployment among the youth.

Two foreign investors, Mr Severin Schulte, and Funfair proprietor Reto Casanova are the brains behind the institute offering technical and Vocational Education Training (TVET) tailored courses curved out of Europe apprenticeship training system.

The innovative concept includes a preventive maintenance program for the hotel buildings and machines, which offers the trainees the ideal opportunity to realize their acquired skills.

“We focus very much on practical approaches or learning by doing. We have here now students who started 10 days ago and they are already building walls not only for school purposes, real walls which end up in buildings. They make bricks and bridges at the moment. These kids, their motivation is very high because, like colleges, where you build something, scrap it and start again. We do practical work from day one and teach them theory on safety tools and workplace safety standards,” Reto said.

The institution was born out of a lack of qualified craftsmen in Mombasa to hire for the repair work in maintenance intensive business ventures like his funfair joint

“We always have high demand maintenance work and that is when we come up with the idea to train our own craftsmen and release them to the job market,” he added.

Reto noted that the three year practical led vocational training is tailored from the European apprenticeship system, which had been credited for the industrial revolution and economic growth in countries like Germany, France, Spain and Britain.

In Europe, high school leavers either join universities or pursue apprenticeship pathways to work and earn salaries as they acquire trade skills.

“It is a widespread program especially in Germany and Switzerland. It goes hundreds of years back. It is the main factor to our industrial success. When you come out of elementary school you have a choice of either go to university or apprenticeship. Vast majority of youngsters choose the apprenticeship because you immediately earn salaries like employees in factories while you work alongside workers and train at the same time,” he said.

Reto said he found the need to transfer the same skills he had acquired in his formative years to young Kenyans and contribute to their dream for a self-determined life.

“We try to bring the system and adapt it to Kenya reality but the system does not take off because it has no cultural anchor here. Which company employs youngsters for four years, trains them and pays them salary and after four year, they go into competition. That is normal procedure in Europe,” he remarked.