Training and Production Center Offers Educational Opportunities to Residents of Azua

Training and Production Center Offers Educational Opportunities to Residents of Azua
Los Cartones, Azua, Dominican Republic 1/25/2012

The new Training and Production Center will benefit residents in the region as they receive the necessary tools to prosper and achieve a better quality of life.

“Azua has been a been a brave, hard-working and invincible town on the front lines of the battle for liberty and democracy. Today it continues its victorious struggle against poverty, unemployment and marginalization using the weapons of training, education and the entrepreneurship we have introduced through the Progresando Program,” stressed the First Lady.

First Lady, Margarita Cedeño de Fernández, delivered a Progresando Training and Production Center to residents in this province which will serve as a path to the comprehensive development of this community through training and education as a way to confront poverty, unemployment and social exclusion.

Mrs. Cedeño de Fernández said the Center is meant to provide residents of Azua with the tools to break the bonds of poverty and exclusion and encourage people to become active in productive endeavors that can lead to the prosperity they seek.

When she visited the area in 2005, recalled the First Lady, she found a people thirsty for attention and opportunity from the government, which is why they began to work toward that end. By 2007, the Progresando Program was in place. Today there are 10,778 Progresando families, 300 links, 22 supervisors and 25 micro-businesses in the area.

“Azua has been a been a brave, hard-working and invincible town on the front lines of the battle for liberty and democracy. Today it continues its victorious struggle against poverty, unemployment and marginalization using the weapons of training, education and the entrepreneurship we have introduced through the Progresando Program,” stressed the First Lady.

She added that the province of Azua has a total of six Community Technology Centers in Padre Las Casas, Guayabal, Peralta, Pueblo Viejo, Las Yayas and Villarpando, serving 1,187 students who are learning technology, creating opportunities to become part of society and the labor market of the 21st century.

“In terms of health and prevention, we have 10,390 children registered in a complete vaccination program; 10,142 women per day receiving pap smears; 1,164 receiving their medication; 7,447 children and adults who are smiling and looking happy as a result of their medical procedures. There is also the Pediatric Emergency Center we inaugurated several months ago. And, what’s more, there are 1,125 adults who now know how to read and write,” reported Cedeño de Fernández.
 
She explained that these numbers and data are the result of the effort, struggle and triumphant aspirations to achieve individual freedom which is only possible when people are actors in their own destiny, when they are self-sufficient in their goal to live with dignity.

The Progresando Training and Production Center will benefit residents in the region who will receive training and education available through the use and acquisition of new tools necessary to obtain prosperity and improve their quality of life. Among the communities benefitting from the program are Barreras, El Rosario, Pueblo Viejo, Terrera, Las Clavellinas, Villa Palmarejo, El Prado, Finca No. 6, Villa Corazón De Jesús, Barro en Medio, El Barro, Carrizal, Majagual, Peralta, Maguellal, Arrollo Salado, Orégano Grande, Bastida, Villarpando, La Canoa, El Fundo, Las Yayas, Padres Las Casas and Guayabal. 

This Center now makes twenty five throughout the country. In Santo Domingo they are located in the areas of Cristo Rey, Villa Juana, Capotillo, Herrera, Villa Duarte, Manoguayabo; Remanzo and Los Guarícanos, in Villa Mella; Andrés y Los Botados in Boca Chica. They are also functioning in Guerra, Don Juan, Yamasá and the lead municipalities of Monte Plata, Vicente Noble, Barahona, Samaná, Santiago, Jarabacoa, Mao, El Seibo, Villa Altagracia and Favidrio, in San Cristobal.

Details about the Training Center
Construction of the Center came at a cost of $9,846,880 Dominican pesos. To raise the monies, the Office of the First Lady (DPD in Spanish) signed a collaboration agreement with the Regional Agency for Immigration and Community Cooperation of Madrid, part of Spain’s Employment, Women’s and Immigration Council.

The building was constructed on an area of 1,015 square meters, donated by the Municipal Town Hall of the Province of Azua. The Center has classrooms for learning to make pastries, repair electro-domestic appliances and a class dedicated to learning cosmetology, computer technology and theory. There are also administrative offices, a kitchen for employees, a reception room, bathrooms, storage areas, drinking water connections and a garden, among other facilities.
 
Training Offered
The Center will offer courses in repairing household equipment, as well as electrical installation and maintenance, computer and electrical appliance repair, manufacture and installation of electrical converters, bread-making, bakery assistant, pastry making and pastry chef assistant and cake decorating.

In the area of computer and information technology, there will be digital literacy courses, information technology, office management, webpage design, accounting assistant, accounting for fiscal and spending and executive secretary courses. Other training courses include haircutting and coloring techniques including dying, color stripping, giving permanents, etc. There will be classes on giving facials and make-up application, facial cleansing, application of permanent eyebrow coloring through tattoos and micro-pigmentation techniques as well as fingernail design.