Af­ter two years of in­tense on-the-job train­ing, eight in­terns have com­plet­ed the sec­ond cy­cle of the in­tern­ship pro­gramme de­signed by NH to cul­ti­vate young pro­fes­sion­als in the con­struc­tion sec­tor.

The grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny took place yes­ter­day at the Kapok Ho­tel, Port of Spain.

In his re­marks, NH’s ex­ec­u­tive chair­man, Emile Elias, praised the in­tern­ship pro­gramme for its im­por­tance to the com­pa­ny’s long-term suc­ces­sion plan­ning and de­vel­op­ment of its next gen­er­a­tion of lead­ers.

"There are is­sues with­in the con­struc­tion sec­tor to find skilled labour and there are is­sues with­in our coun­try to ad­dress un­em­ploy­ment and un­der­em­ploy­ment, es­pe­cial­ly of young peo­ple. The NH in­tern­ship pro­gramme is an in­valu­able re­source that gives us ac­cess to em­ploy the best grad­u­ates in the re­gion and it gives young peo­ple ac­cess to learn from the best pro­fes­sion­als in the in­dus­try," said Elias.

In his speech, the NH ex­ec­u­tive chair­man en­cour­aged the eight grad­u­ates to con­tin­ue to strive for ex­cel­lence, leav­ing them with some nuggets of ad­vice gleaned from 60 years in the con­struc­tion busi­ness: "Don’t take short­cuts; know thy costs; do not en­gage in in­duce­ments; be an ad­vo­cate for truth; be a leader of change in this coun­try; be vo­cal against in­jus­tice; most im­por­tant­ly, work hard…be­cause, with hard work, you suc­ceed; and, when you do right, you pros­per!"

The com­pay's CEO, Cia­ran Con­lon told the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, “We chal­lenged the in­terns to ex­plore the ben­e­fits of waste re­duc­tion on con­struc­tion sites and to iden­ti­fy is­sues im­pact­ing op­er­a­tional and com­mer­cial suc­cess. The fo­cus was on craft­ing so­lu­tions that en­hance pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, cost ef­fi­cien­cy, qual­i­ty con­trol, and en­vi­ron­men­tal sus­tain­abil­i­ty.”

Of the in­tern­ship pro­gramme, vale­dic­to­ri­an, Keeara Bha­ga­loo says “The ex­pe­ri­ences we’ve gained, the chal­lenges we’ve over­come, and the friend­ships we’ve formed have pre­pared us…We look to the fu­ture with hope and de­ter­mi­na­tion, ready to take on new chal­lenges, build new projects, and con­tin­ue to grow both as pro­fes­sion­als and as in­di­vid­u­als.”

Un­der the guid­ance of ex­ec­u­tives at NH, the grad­u­ates have gained pro­fes­sion­al ex­pe­ri­ence through as­sign­ment to var­i­ous de­part­ments at NH’s head of­fice, Trinidad and to spe­cif­ic projects like the Hol­i­day Inn Ex­press and Suites, St Vin­cent & the Grenadines and the Min­istry of Health Ad­min­is­tra­tive Build­ing, Trinidad.

Af­ter grad­u­a­tion, suc­cess­ful in­terns will be con­sid­ered for full-time em­ploy­ment at NH and placed in po­si­tions based on their de­vel­oped skill set.

More than 50 per cent of in­terns from the first co­hort 2020 - 2022 have been re­tained by the com­pa­ny and are gain­ful­ly em­ployed.

NH is, there­fore, pleased to wel­come a new team of young pro­fes­sion­als as the larg­er busi­ness group, the Emile Elias Group of Com­pa­nies, con­tin­ues to cel­e­brate its 60th An­niver­sary.