A CWMBRAN engineering apprentice spent three weeks in Helsinki at a metal fabrication company Konepaja.

Twenty-nine year old apprentice, Ryan Broadrick, from Cwmbran and two other Coleg Gwen trainees, Craig Marshall and Dean Preston, went to gain practical experience of the engineering industry in the Finnish capital.

The trainees spend one day a week at college and the rest putting their fabrication and welding skills to work at Mabey Bridge, Chepstow, but this was a chance for them to develop further.

The apprentices worked on decorative metal works for the city parks, bus shelters, safety barriers and metal sculptures at the relatively small company in Helsinki.

Mr Broadrick said: "It was exciting to experience engineering in another country. The projects we worked on were very different to what we're used to at Mabey Bridge - they were much smaller scale and we used machinery more than we used our hands but it was a great opportunity to broaden our skills."

The visit was part of a pilot scheme developed by Coleg Gwent in partnership with the Helsinki Education Bureau, Konepaja and Mabey Bridge who sponsored the visit.