Report from BHW Sth America Partnership Facilitator Following Visit

Key people : Efrain Baldiviezo  / Pepe Villarroel

Recent Events

The Trades Training Institute has commenced running it’s classes. The program is a year and a half program and it began in February 2014. There are 12 students in total, two of which were previous students of the Bible training school facility. Three scholarships were utilised to assist students through the program. 

Efraín Baldiviezo has been appointed director of the school. Efrain is married with two children. He teaches a module on doctrine in the Camiri Bible Institute (Facultad Bíblica Camiri), as well as directing the technical school and teaching most of the material on general mechanical skills.

Pepe Villarroel is the son of Tino Villarroel and had the original vision for the technical school. Pepe runs a successful mechanical workshop and specialises in auto electrical, electronic fuel injection, ABS brakes and various other more modern technology. Pepe has taught one module in the training program on auto electrical. 

Partnership's Influence within the Community

Efrain has some connections with the local council university - he teaches some classes there. He hopes to see a further relationship develop with the university.

Pepe has good connections within the automotive industry, is highly trained in his specialist fields of auto electronics and is well regarded in the community. 

Students from the community have participated in the course and a Christian radio station is playing in the background. These students have an opportunity to interact with other Christian students in the course and also students from the Bible school.

Plans for the Future

At this stage we are happy with the vision and strategy of this project. The vision is broadly to equip young Christians with a set of skills to enable them to support themselves while serving the Lord in church-planting and evangelising in towns and villages. 

A secondary vision is to have an influence in the local community by providing high quality training opportunities for non-Christians, helping them develop skills and having a positive influence on them for God’s kingdom. 

We are happy to leave the management of the details to Efrain, Pepe and the Camiri property board to achieve this vision.  

A further idea for the future is a night school with specialist training for auto electronics, electronic fuel injection, vehicle computers and ABS braking. This would be a service for qualified mechanics who wish to up-skill and learn new technologies. 

Current Issues and Challenges

At present the school does not have all the certification required to offer a qualification to the students. This is something the team are working on various options for - either through the local university or through an organisation in Santa Cruz. This is an important step for the program to progress.

At present the courses are offered in the afternoons. They would like to see another higher level course offered as a night school that already qualified mechanics could take to up-skill themselves in auto electrics, EFI, vehicle computers etc. This will take some further organisation to make happen.

Prayer and Praise Points

Praise

1) Completion of first training program
2) Resources for tooling, equipment and initial building were all provided
3) Three scholarships utilised to help Bible college students gain a skill/trade
4) A number of students from the community have participated and had an opportunity to hear the gospel

Prayer

1) Wisdom for leadership as they plan the next stages of development
2) Certification of the course is needed so students can gain a full qualification
3) More resources are probably required to complete buildings 

Comments

It was great to see the first program nearing it’s completion. The tools, equipment and curriculum seem well organised. It was excellent to see some students from the community involved. 

It is very important for the course to gain appropriate certification so that students who complete the course can gain a recognisable qualification. This is an important step that we would like to see them complete before they run the classes again.