The successful partnership between the CECN (Chateauguay English Community Network) and the New Frontiers School Board continues to grow and help our community as a new service aimed at improving English language skills for city of Chateauguay municipal workers is now in place.
The CECN was contacted by the municipality of Chateauguay and asked if they could offer an English language course for employees who wished to improve their fluency in English. The CECN was very receptive to help and with the NOVA Career Centre partnering to offer a suitable classroom for the project, the first “jasons en anglais” class took place on October 15th and will run until mid-December.
According to CECN President, Pauline Wiedow, the first class included quite the cross section of municipal workers and the students were extremely pleased and eager to improve their language skills in order to better communicate with the citizens in our area. “We have 13 municipal employees so far in the class and they come from different public sectors, the police and fire department, urban planing, engineering and library service just to name a few.”
Wiedow added “this is fantastic win-win partnership for our community. As it is empowering our municipal employees to improve their skill-set in order to better serve the population. We are so pleased that our partnership with NFSB and its schools has opened up the opportunity for the CECN to offer more and more services in the area.”
The CECN now runs a few community programs such as, the one right across the hall from the above mentioned English class is a French conversation course open to the general public at NOVA also on Tuesday evenings. And the plan is to have both language courses meet up later in the year for a meet-and-greet exercise. A computer course for seniors (NOVA), a reading program with children at Harmony Elementary and a “Write your life story course” at St. Willibrord School & Community Learning Centre. Christine Thompson is part of the “Write your life story class” and couldn’t help but gush over how grateful she is for the service being offered, “it gets me out of the house, so I have a chance to meet others who have similar interests, all while keeping active and the old brain working. Christine, didn’t elaborate on her age but said “I was around when there was no TV and the Second World War was just beginning”.
For more information about the CECN and the services available, you can visit their website:
http://thececn.webs.com/ourpurpose.htm or via email: cecn-racc@hotmail.com