Some health-care students from the Chateauguay Valley Professional Training Centre lived through the experience of a lifetime in the Dominican Republic during the end of the session recently.
That is at least the qualifier that the participants pronounced upon their return from a humanitarian trip to the mountainous region of San Jose de Ocoa. Five coeds and a male student, accompanied by four teachers, did volunteer work in the health domain for the community. The on-the-job trainees thus had the opportunity to put into practice their knowledge and to offer their savoir-faire to the families of the area.
The students of the «Health, assistance and nursing care» program especially retain the human aspect of the sojourn they experienced on Dominican soil. «Learning to know the health system in a developing country turned out to be an exceptional experience for the students. The trainees did not hesitate to say that this was the most beautiful experience of their lives», summed up Debbi Templeton, a teacher at the Chateauguay Valley Career Education Centre.
The Dominican residents of the visited region warmly greeted the Quebec group from the Haut-Saint-Laurent MRC into their homes and their communities. «The students learned a lot about themselves and about another nation of the world», Templeton noted. «They returned home appreciating their everyday lives in the Chateauguay Valley.»
A young woman graduate in home care, Martine Seguin, shared her impressions on the subject of the program dispensed at the Training Centre located in Ormstown.
«My mother tongue is French, said the resident of Dundee. This school provided me with the chance to be able to study in English and gave me the support necessary to be able to complete two DEPs. The methods of teaching helped me a lot. I really enjoyed being here and I have no regrets for having had the courage to come and study in a language which was not my mother tongue.»
«The Chateauguay Valley Professional Training Centre is prioritizing an offer of opportunities based on the apprenticeship in a unique environment and on the production of innovative projects», Templeton signified. The teacher mentioned that the Carpentry home-care team is currently working on a project called «Our House», which does the promotion of competencies throughout the Global Learning apprenticeship. The people interested in joining the health-care program can register at NFSB.me.
Translated by Dan Rosenburg
