Significance of Training

The New Zealand Halal Slaughtermen Union commonly known as NZ Halal Union was incorporated in September 2004 by members of the Christchurch Muslim Community to provide employment and religious support to New Zealand Halal workers.

Everything has a core and the hub of the Halal Meat Industry is the slaughterman. The quality of the products heavily depends on the Halal Slaughterman. This specific person has long been neglected by the surroundings.

Professionally trained, both Islamic and technically, Halal Slaughtermen will lead to a high quality Halal products. A qualified Halal worker means not only performing religiously required Halal cut but also insures the rights of the animal, the compliance of the factory, the packaging and labelling of the product.

The inception of the Halal Union is to invest in the human resources of the Halal workers in general, by standardising the profession, interconnecting them with the industry and the customer through the latest State of the Art Technology – Information & Communication Technology (ICT) Resources.

The Halal Union has gained in a limited time the respect of the Community and the organisations that they have dealt with so far. The Union has been pressing in introducing a professional training program for the Halal Workers to cover all the religious, social and technical aspects of the Halal Industry. The First Halal training program took place in New Zealand in October – November 2005.

It is a unique and encouraging experience that the Halal Worker set a legal entity to communicate their religious employment needs and positively contribute in developing the New Zealand and World Halal Industry by providing a third Party Quality Assurance to both the Customers and the Producers alike.

===============

STRAIGHT 2 WORK FOR HALAL SLAUGHTERMEN

Graduation Ceremony 11 Nov 2005

Hamilton

This is a training program initiated by the Union to train NZ Muslim members to acquire knife skills that would open up several employment opportunities in the Halal Industry, fish industry, meat outlet and supermarkets industry and the hospitality industry. This will ease the expensive recruitment of Slaughterman from overseas. Work and Income NZ ran the first pilot training program called, ‘Straight 2 Work for Halal Slaughtermen,’ in Hamilton. 19 people graduated and received their certificate on Friday 11 November 2005.

The Union Management is negotiating with NZ Islamic Meat Management (NZIMM) to hold similar training program in other cities such as Auckland, Hasting, P/North, Wellington and Christchurch. As soon as information become available the Union management will reach out the community to promote the training program.

The Union also is going to be involved in the development of the training course materials in order to achieve maximum outcomes. During the Training the trainees will be informed of the Employment Act and relative information that would result in carrying their future jobs professionally.

If you interested in become a Halal Slaughtermen or in helping developing and contributing to the development of the Halal Slaughtermen profession please contact the Union. We are very interested to share ideas and thoughts with all involved in the NZ Halal industry.

Below some photos from the first Training Program