The Ministry of the Environment (MoE) through the National Ozone Office (BNO) welcomed a cohort of refrigeration and air conditioning students last month with a view to carrying out an internship on good practices in air conditioning and refrigeration and on the use of new refrigeration technologies.

These internships, which take place in the MdE's new cold technologies laboratory, aim on the one hand to help students have a good understanding of the ozone problem and, on the other hand, to familiarize themselves with new methodologies in the cold field.

Through this continuing education program, technicians from the BNO new cold technologies laboratory supported a first group of 9 students coming from two institutions : ACAM and Hi-Tech.

According to Lourdes Maura, the coordinator of the BNO, this strategy constitutes for the moment, the surest way to reach refrigeration technicians at the grassroots and ensure the entry into the job market of a new generation of refrigeration technicians. Because, she explains, the objective of the BNO is to be able to integrate the problem of ozone and new cold technologies into the curriculum of technical schools.

It should be noted that Haiti is a party to the Montreal Protocol relating to substances that deplete the ozone layer, as well as its amendments since 2000. Haiti's first step in the implementation of this agreement was the development and adoption in 2002 of the Country Program, a basic document reporting an in-depth analysis of the use of substances that deplete the ozone layer in the country and defining the national strategy aimed at their elimination.

According to the Country program, 98% of substances that deplete ozone in Haiti are found in the refrigeration sector.

IH/ iciHaiti