We will never have another Week 1 like this one

From Jamie Boiles, Project Director

As we end our second week of three weeks of Work Readiness training, I realize we will never have another first week of Duhugurane and that makes me excited for the future.

We started with 25 and only 4 have had to drop for personal reasons. To receive a certificate, each participate must attend 90% of the training. I was a little nervous on Day 2 to see who would be returning; most returned.

I have watched an evolution in team work, participation and voice level. The more they work together and participate in class, the more comfortable they get with it.

These 21 girls are beautiful, ambitious and strong. One young lady works several nights a week at a call center, gets off work and then comes to class. Another lady lives a 30 minutes car ride away, but isn't able to take a car, so she uses a combination of bus taxis and her own feet to get to class, taking about 2 hours each way.

Through this training, we are learning how to do things better. I feel like these girls are our first-born; we are making all the parenting mistakes with them, so we will do better next time. (I can say this being the baby of the family.)

We have already determined our goal is not just to churn participants through the training, but walk through these next steps with them and then focus on our next group. And we've gotten to really like and enjoy each and every girl. As we get to know them more, we want to see each one to find success in achieving their dreams.