{"id":11521,"date":"2011-09-05T08:21:06","date_gmt":"2011-09-05T12:21:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/?p=11521"},"modified":"2011-09-05T08:21:06","modified_gmt":"2011-09-05T12:21:06","slug":"bahamas-striping-empowering-youth-with-training","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/2011\/09\/bahamas-striping-empowering-youth-with-training","title":{"rendered":"Bahamas Striping Empowering Youth With Training"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
One of Bahamas Striping\u2019s five trainees, Romell Davis, 18, gets his first hands-on experience applying thermoplastic on speed humps on Sandilands Road. Youth training and empowerment is one of Bahamas Striping\u2019s cornerstone policies. Expert striping techinician Brian Bostock from the UK trains staff to the high UK standards raod marking standards used in the Bahamas.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bahamas Striping, one of the successful Government of the Bahamas Self Starter award winners, is actively pursuing one of its strategic company goals, by training Bahamians in the specialized field of pavement marking.<\/p>\n

Just over a year ago, 24 year old Atario Mitchell took his dream of owning his own business from an idea to reality.\u00a0 Key to his vision and as President of Bahamas Striping was to provide ongoing training and empowerment opportunities for his employees as one of the cornerstones of his business matrix and emerging corporate culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn our analysis of the market, when we looked at the competition, we discovered that the foreign company Road Grip, who had done most of the work here in the Bahamas, had not trained a single Bahamian in the 10 years that it had been operating here,\u201d said Mitchell. \u201cWe were appalled and saw this as a clear breach of our government\u2019s Bahamianization policy as it relates to foreign companies doing business in our country.\u00a0 Road Grip having been doing business in the Bahamas for 10 years brought in skilled foreign technicians and never embraced the opportunity to transfer such skills to empower Bahamians.\u00a0 From my view, having made hundred of millions of dollars here, they have failed the Bahamians people as a responsible corporate citizen.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is why from the onset of Bahamas Striping I decided to implement our training policy that would allow for the empowerment of our 100% Bahamian staff.\u00a0\u00a0 To ensure that we provide our employees the highest industry standards, we brought in a certified striping technician from the United Kingdom to help train our staff.\u00a0\u00a0 As a result, Bahamas Striping and our staff are proficient and compliant to the high marking standards of the UK which are used on the roads in the Bahamas.\u00a0 Bahamas Striping\u2019s Training Technician, Brian Bostock from Liverpool, holds a National Vocational Qualification Level 2 in road marking. His experience includes hot thermoplastic and traffic paint, and traffic management safety.\u00a0 We are pleased that my entire staff is being trained, equipped and empowered to such high international standards.<\/p>\n

Romell Davis was employed by Bahamas Striping just before he turned 18 years of age. He began his training by learning how to mark and measure where the stripes would go on car parks and roads.\u00a0 On the Carl Treco development at Southwest Plaza, he proved himself as a conscientious worker, learning about how the thermoplastic applicator machine works and how to prepare the thermoplastic for commercial and industrial application.\u00a0 As a result of his training, he was given a first time on-site opportunity using thermoplastic to mark 13 of the 19 speed humps along Sandilands Road which he successfully completed.\u00a0 I am excited to see one of my youngest employees being empowered and excelling in an area that has been dominated by foreign workers for over a decade in our country.\u00a0 I am convinced that if we can afford young Bahamian men an opportunity to learn and become skilled in various vocational and technical fields, we will curb the social meltdown that we are seeing in our country today.\u00a0 Bahamas Striping is committed to doing our part and will continue to invest in the empowerment of our employees.<\/p>\n

Romell\u2019s next stage is training and developing skill in applying thermoplastic on roads. We are as proud of Romell training advances as we our all of our team members.\u00a0\u00a0 Romell has as profound sense of pride that he as a young Bahamian was part of the team that recently marked the Lyford Cay School parking lot and the East Bay Street & Fox Hill Road Junction near St. Anne Church.\u00a0 In fact, he and the other employees as young as they are, see themselves as nation builders.\u00a0 As a young entrepreneur, I don\u2019t just want to build a successful company; I want to build nation builders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis job has given me hope,\u201d says Davis. \u201cBefore I came to Bahamas Striping, I was pretty much on my own. I didn\u2019t know where I was going to get money to survive next week. The training has given me a skill that I am proud of and now I can see a brighter future for myself.\u00a0 Road marking is a rare skill in my country for us as Bahamians and I am motivated to making our company the biggest and the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mitchell says, \u201cthe staff will be trained to a level where they can hand mark and operate the machines on their own; in addition they are being trained in thermoplastic for roads and to operate the airless high-speed paint machine normally used for car parks. We\u2019re also training them in the precise art of using hand molds on speed humps and arrows. With our training standing meeting and in some cases exceeding international standards, it eliminates the need for foreign companies having to be brought in, thus taking needed jobs away from Bahamians.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m sure all Bahamians would agree that there is no longer any need for foreign companies to be brought in to do this kind of work that Bahamians not only can do but are qualified, equipped and are willing to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the overall scheme of things, I see a need for young Bahamians to be provided opportunities to learn new skills and gain specific industry experience.\u00a0 As President of Bahamas Striping, I stand committed to not just providing jobs but to the training, inspiring and empowering of our nation\u2019s youth.\u00a0\u00a0 Social and economic empowerment is a way of getting them off the streets and to reducing crime,\u201d says Mitchell. \u201cThis self starter company is giving our young people a second chance.\u00a0\u00a0 At Bahamas Striping, we are proud of our record in impacting and empowering the lives of young Bahamians.\u00a0\u00a0 One of our employees was in jail for something minor and could not get a job because of his record, we hired him. Another has a degree but he also couldn\u2019t get a job because he was over qualified, we hired him.\u00a0\u00a0 Bahamas Striping is providing hope through our training program.<\/p>\n

We wish to thank the government and corporate Bahamas for continue to show confidence in our business and in helping us to grow.\u00a0 Our philosophy is to impact, inspire and empower young Bahamians for generations to come.<\/p>\n

Noting that it was through the Self Starter program that Bahamas Striping got its start, I would like to encourage every young Bahamian that your dream is possible. To date, we are training seven staff and our Company is in preparation for involvement in the BahaMar Development, the Airport phase 2 and 3, the Chinese Airport Gateway, and the New Stadium projects,\u201d says Mitchell.\u00a0 \u201cWith those multi-million dollar projects, we will show the Bahamas and our young people in general what a $5,000 start from the Self Starter program could do when you believe in your dreams and are willing to work hard.<\/p>\n

I believe in hard work and I believe in ownership as Bahamians therefore I am encouraging all of my employees to sign up for the government home ownership program, buy their own land and put their home on it,\u201d says Mitchell. \u201cThis is true empowerment that I believe will reshape our future and secure the Bahamas for generations to come.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bahamas Striping, one of the successful Government of the Bahamas Self Starter award winners, is actively pursuing one of its strategic company goals, by training Bahamians in the specialized field of pavement marking. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_10223285771444175_51037792744":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[21,119,135,51],"class_list":["post-11521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business","tag-educational","tag-roads","tag-small-business","tag-youth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11521","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11521"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11521\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11521"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11521"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bahamasb2b.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11521"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}