BUCHANAN, Grand Bassa – The Liberia Cement Corporation, known more succinctly as CEMENCO, has ended a block production training course for 25 block makers in Grand Bassa.

The training, which saw block makers from a variety of factories in Grand Bassa participate, took place recently at the Jeko Town Junction in Buchanan and was the CEMENCO Block Makers Academy’s first program out of Monrovia.

According to CEMENCO’s logistics and shipping manager, Robert Marshall, the training was part of the company’s corporate social responsibility activities and will be done two or three times a month in various parts of the country.

“We want to improve the quality of blocks being produced by block makers across the country and the only way to do that is to reach out to them in the counties,” Marshall said.

During the training, the block makers produced over 3,000 blocks, which will be presented to the Clar Hope Foundation – founded by First Lady Clar Weah – for the construction of a facility for the elderly and visually impaired in Buchanan.

Speaking on behalf of the office of the superintendent of Grand Bassa, the county information officer, Eddie Williams, thanked CEMENCO for building the capacity of block makers in Grand Bassa.

He also called on the block makers to make maximum use of the opportunity afforded them and to teach other block makers what they learned.

Williams added, “We noticed that buildings [are] no longer guaranteed in term of years spent before damaging and some of the factors have to do with people producing substandard blocks – sometimes one bag of cement to four wheel barrows of sand – so we hope that [the] lesson learned from here will be put to practice for the benefit of everyone.”

Featured photo by Sampson David