JUBA, June 17 (Xinhua) -- China Railway Construction Engineering Group has offered free training to some 20 young South Sudanese engineers.
The engineers drawn from the field of civil, electrical and carpentry recently completed a one-month training at the China-aided project for modernization and expansion of South Sudan's biggest public health facility, the Juba Teaching Hospital.
According to the Chinese company, the 20 students who enrolled for the training, only seven managed to complete it and they would be offered contracts to work for the firm.
Deng Agany Aguto, a graduate of electrical engineering from the University of Rwanda, said he learnt about discipline, self-management and hard work which are key aspects for engineers.
"Working with Chinese is one of the best thing ever because I can see in South Sudan we don't have such modern tools. We have been working with them peacefully, no quarrels and no fight. Having such knowledge is important. I hope to continue working with the Chinese," 25-year-old Aguto told Xinhua.
"The Chinese engineers are very skillful and very interesting to work with. Our only challenge was language barrier because many of the Chinese engineer's cannot speak English," said Benjamin Bol, a graduate of civil engineering from the University of Juba.
Dut Abednego, Representative of China-South Sudan Friendship Association (CSSFA), a body that brings together people and firms from the two countries, said the training program was initiated last month and it seeks to provide technical knowledge to engineering students and boost relations between South Sudanese and Chinese engineers.
He said the program also aims to connect fresh engineering students to get employment opportunities in Chinese companies working in South Sudan.
"We want to bring our civil engineers, electricians closer to Chinese engineers so that they can understand and gain skills from each other because majority of our engineers don't have technical experience and if they work with the Chinese, they will gain experience," Abednego said. Enditem
