Many congratulations to our 18 trainees from Belize, Guatemala, Nicaragua, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, as they complete their 11-week course and prepare to leave Taiwan at the end of this week! Saying farewell is never easy, but we’re doing it the right way, which means making the most of their last week, with many farewell events. The photo above was taken at the party at my house last Wednesday ~ and this afternoon, the Latin American guys kindly invited me to a Ceviche lunch party… ah it’s all fun!

The group have been here since mid-August participating in the “2019 Latin American and Caribbean Countries Vocational Training Project: Electrical and Electronic Engineering 拉丁美洲及加勒比海地區友邦技職訓練計畫-電機工程實務技術英語班”, in association with ‘Taiwan ICDF‘, and hosted by St. John’s University (SJU), Taipei. Last Friday, October 25, we had our closing ceremony at Fullon Hotel, Tamsui where all participants received their certificates and awards. It was a Very Grand Occasion!

The event was held along with Hungkuang University (弘光科技大學) in Taichung, who are also hosting a group of trainees from Latin America and the Caribbean, also through Taiwan ICDF; their course is in Tourism and Hospitality, and they all came up to Taipei for the occasion on Friday. Our group is 16 men and 2 women, while their group is 21 women and 4 men – their group also has trainees from 2 additional countries, Honduras and St. Kitts & Nevis. We were honoured to welcome the very lovely Ambassador of Nicaragua (and Dean of the Diplomatic Corps), William Tapia, who gave a really inspiring speech, in which he said that he too had started out as a scholarship student in Taiwan 55 years ago and it had changed his life. We only have 2 women trainees in our engineering group, Lyanne from St. Lucia and Svetlana from Nicaragua; Ambassador Tapia told me that the word for earth in Spanish is “la tierra”, a feminine word – so he said that the earth belongs to women, and the future is in our hands! Yes, we really do need some more women engineers in this world, and Nicaragua and St. Lucia seem to be the place to find them! We had a large group from St. Lucia at the closing ceremony, in fact, as a whole, the Caribbean participants vastly outnumbered those from Latin America. The largest group of trainees in total were from St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and we were honoured to welcome their ambassador, Andrea Bowman to the closing ceremony. We also welcomed Bishop Lai to give the opening prayer. There were displays around the room of some of the projects, with our professors on hand to explain as necessary. Three or our group were also interviewed by the university reporter…

The whole project is run by Taiwan ICDF (International Cooperation and Development Fund), part of Taiwan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under a scheme known as ‘Vocational Training Courses for Allied Countries’. A number of VIP guests from ICDF also came to the ceremony, including Mr. Yi-Fang Chen, Counselor. Each trainee received a certificate of completion, presented by SJU President Herchang Ay, and there were also individual awards for excellence (to Herberth from Guatemala) and for Public Spiritness (to Ian from Belize). Speeches were given by trainees, and videos shown of the courses. Trainees from both universities then joined together for group photos taken country by country along with their ambassador or representative, they also received gifts to take home as souvenirs. Group photo of everyone…

Photos below show each country – plus the individual presentations….

Belize…

Guatemala…

Nicaragua…

St. Lucia…

St. Vincent and the Grenadines… (with Ambassador Tapia taking a photo in the foreground!)

Honduras and St. Kitts and Nevis – all their trainees were from Hungkuang University…

The first prize for the most amazing outfit from our group has got to be Ashton from Belize who came in a black suit and hat, with red shirt and red shoes. Sunglasses added to the style, so cool!

After the ceremony, we had photos and more photos, followed by the buffet lunch at the hotel. A great day indeed!

This is the 5-minute video shown by our group at the closing ceremony, showing what they’ve been up for the last few months….

Lots of congratulations to everyone, with many thanks to our SJU team for all their hard work – and especially to our 18 trainees as they prepare to say goodbye to Taiwan at the end of this week and return home to their families and their jobs – sharing with others what they’ve learned while they’ve been here. Wishing them all a safe journey ~ and many blessings on their future lives!

PS. Updated, Friday November 1: our trainees have all left! 😢😢Country by country, the first group departed for the airport last night, 3 more this morning, and I accompanied the final group, Nicaragua to the airport at lunchtime today (that’s us in the above photo) along with Jun-Hong, standing on the far left – he’s been the airport 4 times in the last 24 hours! They all have long journeys ahead, via Europe or USA, but they all reach home sometime on Saturday, their time, and the 3 Nicaraguans, Moises, Svetlana and Carlos all start back at work at 7:00 am on Monday morning!

Goodbye everyone, we will miss you, but we’ll never forget you. It’s been great welcoming you all to Taiwan. God bless you all!