- The post pandemic community initiative provides formal skills in electric installation allowing certified students to leverage this knowledge and start up their own companies.
Santiago, June 11, 2021 - It took nine weeks of face-to-face classes and online sessions, mid-pandemic, to train to become residential electrical installation technicians. Enel Distribución and INFOCAP decided to train a group of informal workers as residential electrical installation technicians in communities where Enel Distribución operates as a concessionaire.
To earn their certificates, participants had to take 203 hours of technical training on INFOCAP's online platform and 155 hours of additional face-to-face classes at INFOCAP's Santiago headquarters.
“This was another strategic move as part of our post-pandemic community initiatives. It enables us to train and certify young people from the communities where we operate, in new skills,” said Enel Distribucion's CEO Ramón Castañeda.
INFOCAP's executive director Danilo Núñez added, “the tools that our institution provides enable us to change not only the lives of workers, but of their entire families. Here they not only learn new technical skills, but also how to use these learnings and to transform them into a business.”
According to Néstor Bascuñán, one of the students that participated in the training program, “this course boosted my knowledge of electricity and left me wanting to continue studying. I can now apply what I have learned during this course in a more formal job setting. So, I thank Infocap and Enel for giving us the opportunity to become accomplished technicians.”
Another of the graduates, Diego Leslie, said, “this course helped me to learn about electrical regulation, knowledge I can use to ensure safer and more efficient electric installations for my customers.”
He added, “It builds trust. The people I'm working with know that the jobs that I do are safe and efficient.”
The project, which kicked off in 2020, is an opportunity to get professional training as an electrician thus improving their chances of gaining formal employment. The 20 graduates received class D certificates from the Electricity and fuels Regulator (SEC).