Instructor Delores Kirlew (fourth right 1st row) poses with some of the 41 Level One trainees from the Boulevard Baptist Training Centre who entered in JCDC competition. The group was awarded 50 medals and certificates at the JCDC Eastern Regional Festival of Foods. (Photo: Karl McLarty)

For one school to lay claim to over 50 awardees in the Eastern Regional Festival of Foods is an extraordinary feat. Yet, this is what Boulevard Baptist Training Centre (BBTC) accomplished at the Eastern Regional Festival of Foods competition held Friday last at the Chinese Benevolent Association.

Forty-one of 54 HEART Trust/NTA trainees cooked, whipped, battered, sautéed and pickled their way into the Jamaica Cultural Development Commission (JCDC) award books during the competition.

Allison Beckett, instructor at the Boulevard Baptist Training Centre, accepts one of her three gold medals at the Eastern Regional Festival of Foods from Michael Nicholson, JCDC event specialist.

So the obvious question is: what exactly are they teaching at that school?

"We teach Commercial Food Preparation," said Carol Dockery, co-ordinator of the training centre operated out of an annex at the Boulevard Baptist Church. "And we have always done well at the JCDC level," she boasted.

And with instructors who also excel during the JCDC competitions, the students have great examples to follow.
Instructor Allison Beckett, who is off training two entrants for the WorldSkills Jamaica competition, was awarded three gold medals during last Friday's Eastern Regional Festival of Foods.

Delores Kirlew, an nstructor at BBIC, proudly accepts one of her three medals (two gold and one silver) from Lloyd Davis, chairman of the Kingston & St Andrew Cultural Development Committee at the recently held Eastern Regional Festival of Foods put on by the JCDC.

Delores Kirlew, another instructor, was awarded two gold medals and one silver medal for her creations.
But what really accounts for their excellence?
It seems that the students are challenged to achieve excellence.

"It's the hard work and dedication of the instructors that must be noted," Dockery said. "We have numerous units (during the nine-month-long course), and for each unit we have at least three practicals," she added.

But not only are the students given cooking classes and ingrained in the Team Jamaica concept, they are given other training including data-operations.

The BBTC has been training young and older Jamaicans since 1982, with an outreach programme put on by the Boulevard Baptist Church. But since 1992, the Level One Commercial Food Preparation course, administered by the HEART Trust/NTA, has emerged as an extension of that programme. Since then the training centre has been churning out numerous top achievers into the Jamaican workforce.

Shaneka McDonald and Cetria Burke, both commis chefs (or Level Two trainees at BBTC), showed off their skills at the National Indoor Sports Centre last Wednesday to Friday. These two young ladies will follow in the steps of four other trainees from BBTC, three of whom received gold medals and one a silver medal during the inaugural WorldSkills Jamaica competition.

And to continue with the level of excellence that these students exude, Burke scored 91 per cent in the elimination round in Kingston for the WorldSkills Jamaica competition.
However, 2008 is not the only year that BBTC has excelled in JCDC competitions.

"We always try to encourage our students to enter competitions whenever they come around," said Allison Beckett, BBTC instructor in culinary technique since 2000. Last year 20 or 21 trainees entered the JCDC competition and all of them medalled," she stated.

"Our trainees have been doing exceptionally well," Dockery claimed proudly. "We can't seem to turn out enough. The places of internship regularly call us for more trainees," she added.

In fact, she says whenever the trainees go out for internship, the placements, mostly in hotels such as Knutsford Court Hotel, Courtleigh Hotel, Pegasus Hotel, etc, snap up the trainees before their courses end.

For Robert McLeish, that particular scenario did not happen. McLeish finished his internship in October 2007 without a job offer. But he was hired two months after graduating.

"The managers love my work attitude. A lot of what I learn at Boulevard, I use now. It (the training) really help me in the real world," McLeish said, while in the kitchen 'line' at the Courtleigh Hotel.

As it is for many Jamaican youth, McLeish did not make the most of his school years and left school without passes from the Caribbean Examinations Council (CXC).

"Mi idle out mi school days, mi just did a go school. So when mi left Norman Manley (High School), mi neva have no subject. Just some SSCs (Secondary School Certificate). Mi neva really have no money fi tek CXCs, but if mi did tek it, mi woulda have subject," McLeish said. "Mi did love accounts," he added.

So Boulevard Baptist Training Centre was a godsend for him. After leaving the secondary level education system some 10 years before, in 2007, McLeish applied to BBTC for formal kitchen training.

"Mi did always have di skill inna di kitchen, but mi fren dem encourage mi fi go back a school. Mi decide fi mek a career out of it. And mi start go BBTC," 33-year-old McLeish recounted.

But his story does not end there. Robert McLeish has plans to go on to pursue his Level Three training in Commercial Preparation at Runaway Bay HEART Hotel and Training Institute in September.

"I finished my Level Two training two (three) weeks ago. I want to go on to Level Three in Runaway Bay, then on the cruise ships," McLeish said.

Students of BBTC generally range between the ages of 17-50, but there is no limit to what they can achieve. It is believed that HEART Trust/NTA programmes are geared towards students (like McLeish), who might not have earned good results during their secondary school life. But the BBTC is one place that even the lowliest of student can excel.

"Trainees have left and come back as instructors, trainees have even received scholarships to the Western Hospitality Institute," BBTC co-ordinator Dockery said. "We have always done very well."

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