Belizeans Receive Capacity Building Training through SSB Empowerment Program

Over fifty Belizeans will be graduating from the Social Security Board’s Empowering You capacity-building program.  The course focused on offering free skills training in barbering, massage therapy, and nail technology. The Empowering You program for January 2023 was geared toward residents in the Caye Caulker and San Pedro areas, where these skills would benefit them as tourism starts to boom. SSB’s Corporate Relations Officer, Mowava (Mo-way-va) Fuller, explains that this initiative came about in commemoration of their 40th anniversary; however, after seeing the negative impacts Covid-19 had on people in terms of employment, the SSB decided to expand the program so people can become self-sufficient. 

Mowava Fuller, Corporate Relations Officer, Social Security Board: “Empowering You is just as the name indicates it is all about empowerment. Empowerment through the provision of hands on, free of cost skills training for our participants to launch into a future of entrepreneurial opportunities where the future is theirs for the taking because they’ve been provided with the necessary training support that we’ve covered for them. The facilitators for the training come from the YWCA. So we provide the trainings in facilitation, in collaboration with the Y. They tailor their courses for us to create one week skills intensive courses. So the participants get that hands on intensive nature of the courses so that they can get the most out of the experience in that five full business days. When we started in 2021 we we were looking for persons that were affected by COVID but moving forward in 2022 and in 2023 that condition was no longer applicable so you just have to have the initiative, the drive and the want for yourself to want something more, to launch out into an entrepreneurial field or to even find employment with someone. Once you want to do the training you just apply for it, you tell us why you want to be a part of the training, we review your application and you can become one of the successful participants.”

Participants range from ages eighteen to fifty. A second cohort from Southern Belize is expected to commence training later this year.