Last week, girls from across the Rainy River District School Board (RRDSB) were at La Place Rendez-Vous for a Skilled Trades and Tech Day for Young Women, hosted by the board and Skills Ontario.
Katie Cameron is the Coordinator for the Young Women’s Initiative with Skills Ontario. She said the events are planned to give young women an opportunity to be exposed to the skilled trades.
“We plan these types of events across the province for girls in grades seven through 10, and we do a different type of skilled trade and tech day for girls in grades 11 and 12 called industry events,” she said. “Our biggest goal is just to expose girls to different types of careers, see if they enjoy doing activities, hands-on activities, and exposing them to possible mentors and people they can look up to in the trades.”
Part of the day was a panel discussion with women involved in trades and trades-adjacent fields during the lunch portion of the day.
One of the panel members was Red Seal welder Kaitlyn Baldwin, who works at Coeur Rainy River. Baldwin said she thinks it’s important for girls to be exposed to the idea of working in trades.
“I think it’s really great just to have representation of women in the trades that are doing it successfully, and for younger women to see that and see that it’s an option for them going forward as well,” she said.
During the panel discussion Baldwin explained how she got interested in the idea of becoming a welder when she was attending Fort Frances High School, and how a supportive teacher helped her.
“I started taking tech classes in high school, where my teacher kind of encouraged me to consider it as a career,” she said. “I ended up doing co-ops in high school and then working full time as a labourer at Gavel’s to start out. I got my CWB (Canadian Welding Bureau) tickets there and started working for him as a welder, and then I switched over to Coeur. As a foot in the door I took a utility labourer position, and worked my way up to get my apprenticeship and now my Red Seal.”
Stations for the event included a bird house building station, where the participants got to practice some carpentry skills, there was a station where they had the opportunity to build a small robot, they also got to work with a technician from Enbridge. They also had an opportunity to spend time in the Skills Ontario Trades and Tech Truck, which gives students the chance to try a variety of different simulators and practice skills, including changing a tire, and trying their hand at virtual vehicle painting among other skills.
Robroy Donaldson is the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship (OYAP) Coordinator and Lead of Experiential Learning for the RRDSB. He said events like this show girls that the trades are a viable path forward after they’ve finished school.
“So this is being held by Skills Ontario in partnership with NTAB (Northwest Training and Adjustment Board) in the region, and that’s an organisation that’s really focused on ensuring that young people are considering the skilled trades and apprenticeship pathway as a viable option. It being a rewarding pathway,” he said. “It’s part of our mandate through the OYAP program, to connect students to apprenticeship, and also to ensure that we are promoting the pathway to students early.”
Donaldson said the statistics bear out that more people are needed in the trades and women are a relatively untapped resource.
“[Gender] inequities continue to persist in the labour market, we see it in our classes and our tech courses. What we’re trying to do is ensure that girls are given the opportunity to see the value and see that this is a pathway for them. If we look at the number of new apprentices, it’s still only one in ten of our new apprentices every year who are women. We need to change that for two reasons. The first is that we need tradespeople to keep our lights on, our motors running and our houses being built. The second reason is that if any one of these students is not considering the skilled trades and apprenticeships as a pathway, because they don’t think it’s for them, then we’re denying them the opportunity for one of the most rewarding pathways that is available to them.”
