Students from Mejillones start dual program at AES Chile power plants

June 7, 2024

• The youths - from the Juan José Latorre Educational Complex - will take their first steps into the workforce at the Angamos and Cochrane units.

A total of 12 students from the Juan José Latorre Educational Complex in Mejillones will take their first steps into the workforce thanks to the start of the Dual Educational Program developed by AES Chile.

This initiative aims for students to gain a more robust learning experience, closely tied to the energy industry, beyond what they learn in classrooms, facilitating their integration into the job market. Over the 12 years the program has been running in Mejillones, over 100 local youths have benefited from it, with excellent outcomes. The students participating in this edition will work in mechanical, instrumentation, and electrical areas, spending 40 hours a week at the Angamos and Cochrane power plants of AES Chile, where they will receive support and guidance from their mentors, roles fulfilled by the company's own employees.

"For AES Chile, it is of vital importance to collaborate in technical/professional education, aiming to provide competencies and tools for the personal development of the students so they can enter the workforce better prepared," emphasized Vanni Boggio, Manager of the Northern Complex, who welcomed the students alongside municipal authorities, the director of Juan José Latorre High School, and collaborators from the power plants.

In turn, the acting mayor of Mejillones, Manuel Monardes, expressed, "For us, as a municipality, the dual program is very important. In the region, there are only two high schools that have this program system with students. This time, there are 12 students from the Juan José Latorre Benavente Complex - six from the electrical area and six from the mechanical area - entering the 2024 version. We appreciate the reception and the continuation of this dual modality in Mejillones, which is an opportunity for our youths that is not available elsewhere in the country."

Councilor María Cabello remarked, "I hope all companies would implement a program like this. AES Chile is giving these young people the opportunity to gain much more experience. This company is very good, so I hope they make the most of it, learn as much as they can, and hopefully, in the coming years, we can include more students."

Tonka Djurovich, a student participating in the program, expressed gratitude for this opportunity. "For us, it means a lot because it opens doors to a future with a broader vision of what we want to do, where we want to work. We appreciate the warm welcome, the treatment, the trust given to each of the students, and we hope it will be a very good experience," she said.

The Northern Complex AES Chile has been a pioneer in developing this type of education program with technical/professional students in Mejillones, an initiative that continues to benefit future professionals of the community each year, where several of them have ultimately been hired by the company.