Next month’s start of new hospitality training courses is an important aspect of the continued recovery from Hurricanes Irma and Maria in September 2017. Many visitor accommodations were badly damaged or in some cases even destroyed.
The resulting sudden loss of jobs and income would have dire consequences, so a way was devised to upgrade un- and underemployed workers while providing them with an allowance to help make ends meet. Health insurance was later added to this Emergency Income Skills Training Programme proposed by a group of concerned business owners who covered start-up cost, and first subsidised to the tune of US $4.5 million by the governments of St. Maarten and the Netherlands before the Dutch-sponsored Trust Fund managed by the World Bank took over to keep it going.
A total of 720 persons participated in a variety of courses, often combined with reduced shifts implemented at their places of employment out of necessity. The White and Yellow Cross Care Foundation (WYCCF) also offered health care training with St. Maarten Medical Center (SMMC) and on-the-job construction learning via its own home repair programme for elderly district-nursing clients.
Not everyone may have realised it, but these initiatives played a pivotal role in keeping the socioeconomic situation on the ground manageable during the past months as especially the stayover tourism sector slowly but surely bounces back. Various resorts have rebuilt and reopened, but others remain closed, and those still waiting for full-time work would do well to make use of the opportunity to help themselves and, in the process, make SXM even stronger.
