SENA - Clase Mundial

Today I visited another few training centers of the SENA organization. We started in a center with specialization on design & fashion. This center was opened a few years ago and the learning environment is excellent. Below the large practical training area for manufacturing clothing (they produce a lot of the uniforms used by SENA students and staff here with trainees of short term programs 100 to 420 hours as well as with technicians and technologists):

The numbers of trainees - as in any of the SENA training centers - are staggering. Thousands of student come through during four terms each year; about 30,000 at this center. Remember: SENA offers training to about 7 million students each year.....

All the class/instruction rooms have multi-purpose designs and are very open. All technicians and technologists are constantly trained in group/team work. Individual work spaces can be found everywhere in the buildings:

The text above the stairs says that SENA trains people for community building. There is also everywhere attention for safety:

A poster to stimulate trainees and students to participate in "math Olympics". The message everywhere is "you can do it". Keep in mind that SENA offers free training for people who have low family incomes. There is all the time the encouragement to "break the cycle"....

The confection training center also has programs for maintenance technicians, and also the users of the equipment are taught basic maintenance:

In one of the buildings a group of small confection business owners were graduating from a training program on "human resources management". In the same "corporate training section" there is a store for the public where student project results can be purchased (we call this in Canada "learning enterprises"):

Elsewhere space for shoe-design and production training can be found. Below are some students working on the production of shoes of their own design:

This machine glues the bottoms of shoes on. The training center also has a few mobile classrooms which visit rural communities for two week training sessions:

There is a specialized center for leather ("cuero") product design and production.

A small program for jewelry production training adds value to the mining of gold and silver:

They just started here to prepare students to compete in the "World Skills" (see one of my posts of June on the Skills Canada Nationals 2013 in Vancouver).

CAD-CAM (Computer Aided Design - Computer Aided Manufacturing) has also reached this classroom and they hope to buy a $20,000 state-of-the-art CAD-CAM machine soon:

Juan Guillermo was the Director of this center for a couple of years (before taking over the training center in Puerto Berrio), so he still knows many of the instructors and staff.

Industrial design is also a training center on this campus as well as a training center for design in construction & interior design. This campus is located in between two "troubled" communities in the city with many problems of violence and crime. The training center is like an island of peace. Around the campus you can see the informal and low income housing (behind the sign below):

The campus has a small exhibition space for student project demonstrations and art exhibits.

The woodworking area still had machines in use donated 40 years ago by the Canadian government and still in excellent condition. Sustainability....

But this center is now also venturing in state-of-the-art design and production with machinery from Taiwan (for 3D modelling) and Italy (perforation CAD-CAM machine):

Juan Guillermo with the current campus director, Angela. She worked in the center when Juan Guillermo was director and followed in his foot-steps a few years later, now managing a center which has "clase mundial" = world class.