DENVER — Two community groups have announced a new partnership that will bring a workforce development center and resources to Denver’s Globeville Elyria-Swansea community.
Centro de los Trabajadoresand Tierra Colectiva, the GES Coalition’scommunity land trust, will train Globeville Elyria-Swansea residents in industries facing worker shortages.
“After some research, three industries came up: construction, hospitality and childcare. Those three industries really need workers in Colorado, they're behind on hiring workers. So we are giving the path where workers are trained, not just on the certification that they need, but El Centro provides three phases in this kind of workforce development. We provide the soft skills, meaning English, ESL (English as a second language), computer basic skills, cultural integration, as well as resume building,” said Mayra Juarez-Denis, executive director of Centro de los Trabajadores.
Juarez-Denis said the goal is for workers to secure good-paying jobs.
“We provide workforce development that is based on the workers, not the employers per se,” Juarez-Denis said. “Then we have a whole team of case management where they walk with a worker so they're not alone. There's no, 'Okay, you have a job. See you later.' No, we actually work with them for retention, and we work with employers as well to figure out how to make better the workplace.”
Juarez-Denis said the center will build on the work El Centro is already doing, which is important for the GES community that needs these resources.
“Our goal would be to bring the people that are looking for jobs, that are looking for dignified jobs, that are looking for stable jobs, to El Centro to go through their training, and also to bring the businesses in the neighborhood to start employing more people that live in the neighborhood,” said Nola Miguel, executive director of the GES Coalition and Tierra Colectiva Community Land Trust. “Part of a functioning economy are workers that are ready to go and businesses that want to take them. And it's something in Globeville Elyria-Swansea that we've been missing, those connections, for a long time with these kind of large-scale industries in our neighborhood... and I'm hoping that with El Centro, we can reconnect with more of those industries.”
Miguel and Juarez-Denis said the organizations are still trying to identify an exact location within Globeville Elyria-Swansea for the center.
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