TORONTO, ON / ACCESSWIRE / September 23, 2020 / Belise Gakwaya is currently a substation technical engineer at Eversource Energy in New Hampshire, USA. She is responsible for monitoring substation conditions to ensure system reliability. She collects and analyzes that ensures preventative maintenance. Belise looks ahead to an exciting, stable and rewarding engineering career path.
Before embarking on her career at Eversource Energy in New Hampshire, Belise interned at one of Ayabatwa's manufacturing plants in Uganda. During her internship, she was part of the team that connected the factory to the power grid. The factory was previously powered by generators. The work involved constructing a substation on the factory premises and bringing in a 33kV line kilometers away.
Ayabatwa and Belise agree on the importance of internship for engineers. They agree that classroom theoretical knowledge is not enough to work in industries. Students need to have hands-on experience working in a real-time environment and projects. Therefore, internships give students the opportunity to apply their theoretical knowledge they have learned in the classroom. Crucially, students get first hand-exposure working under a mentor who challenges them to think outside the box. To put simply, an internship is the best way to bridge the gap between the employer's requirements and academic learning.
That is what Belise gained in her one-year internship sponsored by Ayabatwa. As Belise explains, working on electricity project in Uganda helped her to understand the full life cycle of a project, from creating a scope to procuring vendors/equipment and ultimately to completing the project.
Moving from the internship to her current position was a smooth transition because it was the same work she did in Uganda under a mentor. Belise adds that her internship in Uganda inspired her to aim for greater purpose. She has no doubt that Ayabatwa's one-year program equipped many others who benefited from the same program, especially in Africa where such opportunities are extremely limited.
Giving back to the community has always permeated Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa's business endeavours.
In Ayabatwa's world, contributing to the common good, especially in training young people cannot be separated from doing business. As he puts it, "without giving back to the community by empowering young people, neither a private enterprise nor a country can prosper. Communities are the foundation on which wealth is built. No one should be left behind." For Ayabatwa, seeing young people like Belise working in her chosen career of engineering is confirmation that there can be no better value than investing in people.
Contact:
David Himbara
[email protected]
PANAFRICAN TOBACCO GROUP
SOURCE: Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa