Graduating way to confidence for employees
GRADUATING yesterday after completing an adult literacy and numeracy course was not only a success for student Deborah Rielly but also for her employer, Cargill Enterprises.
‘‘I feel confident, I feel happy,’’ Mrs Rielly said before she became one of 20 Cargill Enterprises workers to graduate from the ‘‘Cargill Academy’’ course.
She is among the second group of Cargill workers to graduate, at the South Dunedin Community Hub, after the first group of 21 graduated last April.
The Cargill Academy training initiative is also supported by the Good Training Programme, a specialist training provider for people who learn differently.
Cargill Enterprises chief executive Geoff Kemp said establishing an educational academy had been ‘‘a dream when I started six years ago’’, and had also been an ambition for the Cargill board.
Successfully completing what was usually a yearlong course, delivered on site, had already made a huge difference to the workers—‘‘it’s lifetransforming’’.
For most participants this was the first time they had studied as an adult.
Mr Kemp said the course graduates were not only building numeracy and literacy skills—valuable in the workplace — but were also building their confidence for future learning.
The academy’s new ‘‘Skills Highway’’ training programme was highly commended in last year’s national Diversity Awards.
Three other social enterprises elsewhere in the country have also followed their example by also launching workplace literacy programmes.
Cargill Enterprises is a Dunedin social enterprise which employs 89 people with intellectual and physical disabilities.