Back in August, SAIT welcomed three planes to Calgary which together carried 92 Angolan men and women sent by Angola LNG to undergo uniquely customized training in a variety of disciplines. At the time, none of them had any sense of the challenges they would face, nor of the experiences they would enjoy over the course of their six months in Canada.
The trainees’ intense schedule, which saw them in class six days per week, was perforated with a number of exciting cultural experiences. 
These activities, intended to give the trainees a broad sense of what it means to be Canadian, included outings to the skating rink, the ski hill, and to Boundary Ranch in Kananaskis where they enjoyed a sleigh ride and – in true Stampede spirit – got to try their luck at mechanical calf roping. But even having done all of this, what would the better part of a year spent in Canada be without experiencing a hockey game? In December, the troop of Angolans not only attended a hockey game, they put the Canadians in the stadium to shame with their distinct and noisy brand of Angolan enthusiasm. In fact, they cheered so loud that the General Manager of the Hitmen hockey club offered the entire crew free seats for another game.
When they weren’t out experiencing Canadian culture, the trainees were hard at work studying to master intricate and complex topics included in Operations, Instrumentation, Mechanical, and Electrical courses. Instructors from the MacPhail School of Energy, the School of Manufacturing & Automation, and the Centre for Academic Learner Services worked together to deliver the courses and each of them did an incredible job. As a testament to their efforts, one of the trainees exclaimed: “I can’t imagine a better place to learn technical subjects with such clarity.”
Graduation was the culmination of all the hard work that has brought the trainees to the end of their term at SAIT. The graduation ceremonies were much more than a celebration of what each of these graduates has accomplished over the past few months: for many of them, graduation marked the start of a new life.
The trainees departed SAIT, and Canada, on February 5. We hope that each of them will look back on their time spent here with fondness and joy.
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