This program brought twenty-four participants from Angola, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Cote d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Eswatini, Kenya, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Sudan, Togo, Uganda, and Zimbabwe, traveling with five liaisons, to Kalamazoo from July 20-23.
This group visited KRESA’s new Career Connect Campus and all it has to offer students, like a 'museum of the future.' One visitor from this delegation said that Kalamazoo should be prepared, as people will soon be coming from across the globe to see, experience and learn from this state of the art, world class facility and its community centered approach to workforce development for young people.
The group also connected with KVCC’s Groves Center, and the Food Innovation Hub. They met with our friends at the Kalamazoo Promise to hear about their work in supporting student-apprenticeship programs in the trades. The GTK team felt a huge sense of community pride as this group remarked on the thoughtful collaboration and program development happening in Kalamazoo to create a future ready workforce that is also tailored to meet local needs.
We are grateful for their engagement and reflections on workforce development in their countries and Kalamazoo, helping us all secure a brighter future.