Xel-Ha Blog

This past Friday saw the inauguration of the Technological Training Centre in ChemuyilWith the donation of 14 computers for the use of children, youths, and adults. This contribution to the development of the population’s technological skills and reducing the digital gap, aims to improve economic and social development within the population.

The alliance between Flora, Fauna, and Culture of Mexico, Microsoft Mexico, and Xel-Ha Park is an example of how corporate social responsibility and civilian organisations can concur in actions that achieve positive results for society in specific projects, regardless of each party’s individual labour or purpose.

During the event, Marian Olvera, Microsoft Mexico representative, emphasised that up until today 100 of Microsoft’s Technological Training Centres have been established throughout 26 states of the Mexican Republic, and praised the many achievements attained by Xel-Ha within the last 10 years in benefit of this community. He also remarked on how this training centre will be a enormously helpful tool for the community’s development, and promised to follow it closely.

During her speech, Elizabeth Lugo Monjarras, Xel-Ha’s CEO, pointed out that supportive labour in benefit of the community has evolved in a positive way, and the fact that Chemuyil’s population has access to information technology opens a whole new array of opportunities in fields such as training, entertainment, and a world of new knowledge leading towards better horizons.

On her behalf, Guadalupe Quintana Pali, head of Flora, Fauna, and Culture of Mexico, thanked Microsoft for the goodwill towards the responsible social causes, and stressed the importance of this alliance as the beginning as a long and fruitful relationship that will allow the amplification of their individual activities. Also attending the ceremony, was head of Tulum’s Education and Library departments, Pablo Enrique Tuz Dzib.

The technological training program for the Microsoft community has the goal of reducing illiteracy through computing, and to help technological knowledge evolve in youths and adults from marginal communities or poor economic conditions, with an aim to endow them with new abilities that will allow them to increase their possibilities of obtaining a well paid job or improve their performance in their current job. Improving the employability of underprivileged people is the programs main objective.

To achieve this, Microsoft has made strategic alliances with several civilian organisations, to whom the company has made monetary, software, and curricular donations (training courses in computing skills), to create computer classrooms in existing community centres. These computer classrooms are the aforementioned Technological Training Centres.

The TTC’s offer access Computing Technology and basic training in technological know-how to people, both free of charge. These are centres open to the public, seeking positively influence communities’ social and economic development.

For the TTC in Chemuyil, Microsoft Mexico and its business parties donated 8 laptops and six desktop computers, software, as well as training programs for the courses taught in this centre, from learning text processing on Word, to Excel spreadsheets, Internet navigation, to designing and managing websites.

In this sense, the TTC in Chemuyil will be operating in the facilities of the Community Centre-Library La Ceiba, which is celebrating its 10th anniversary and is sponsored from 1997 by Xel-Ha.

The Community Centre-Library La Ceiba has been an open space for reading, investigation and text consultation, it receives a monthly average of 1000 readers, of which 80% are students and 20% are adults. Simultaneously, this building is used as a space for Xel-Ha to apply its open education programs for adults, in coordination with the INEA (National Institute for Adult Education); as well as handcrafts, workshops, painting classes, art appreciation, and ecological awareness, including conferences on social issues, for the benefit of local community members.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 5:42 pm and is filed under News feature, Social Benefits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.