Ads by Google Ads by Google

Construction training in Guam completed

All thirty participants of the American Samoa Emergency Grant (ASNEG) Program “have successfully completed the core construction training program” in Guam, said Human Resources Department director Evelyn Vaitautolu Langford, responding yesterday to Samoa News questions for an update on the group’s accomplishments.

Guam’s news media reports that the six-month training program is a public-private partnership between the American Samoa Government, the Ukudu Workforce Housing and Training Village and the Center for Micronesian Empowerment (CME).

Langford told Samoa News that fifteen of the group members are now proceeding with the Craft Labor Certification program. Job search activities are currently underway and two have been hired thus far in Guam with eight more pending final selection.

The first to be hired in Guam is Fue Tili Jr., who now works as a heavy equipment operator for Watts Constructors on the Naval Base. The resident of Aoa has completed his tests for knowledge on operating heavy equipment and now has an operator’s card for operating heavy equipment, according to information provided by Langford on the ASNEG group update.

“Three times a week the group participates in either job application and search activities or are being taken to employers around Guam,” said Langford. “When not involved in job search activities they are participating in on-the-job training at job sites around Guam.”

So far, said Langford, both groups involved in on the job training have renovated 20 classrooms for the Guam Department of Education. Additionally, mayors and other officials are requesting that CME and its American Samoan class assist their villages as well. 

The ASNEG has been getting a lot of media attention in Guam and have been welcomed by the community there, according DHR information from Guam, adding that at the end of last month, the group offered a thank-you hymn to over 300 employers at the island’s largest workforce development conference and made an enormously positive impression with the conference participants and the various heads of state who attended from around Micronesia.

According to Langford, all of the participants in Guam have a weekly Skype session arranged by the ASNEG staff for the parents and families.

Graduation from the CME program is scheduled for late May.

Langford and the ASNEG program manager will be conducting a site-visit of the CME program in two weeks time for program compliance and the DHR officials will also deliver gifts to the participants from their families in American Samoa.

DHR says CME staff is also assisting the participants, who will be transitioning into permanent jobs with housing and transportation arrangements. The participants will be paying for their own housing and transportation with wages received from their jobs.