Ontario Construction News staff writer
Skills Ontario has partnered with KickAss Careers, Women In Renewable Energy (WiRE), and Women of Powerline Technicians (PLT) to further positively impact young women and promote exciting career opportunities in the skilled trades and technologies.
Through skill development, mentorship, networking, and experiential learning opportunities, Skills Ontario and its collaborating organizations will provide educational and engaging workshops, such as the Young Women’s Career Exploration Events, which run throughout the school year, and the Young Women’s Conference, which is hosted in conjunction with the annual Skills Ontario Competition, to encourage exciting career paths.
“We are delighted to be partnering with women in skilled trade and technology organizations,” said Jennifer Green, Director of Competitions and Young Women’s Initiatives at Skills Ontario.
“These collaborations are important, because they reach young women across the province with an important message: that the skilled trades and tech offer rewarding, lucrative, and fulfilling career opportunities. By standing together with the same mission, we are able to amplify that message and connect Ontario’s young women to mentors.”
According to KickAss Careers founder Jamie McMillan, the partnership will provide students, parents and educators with authentic representation in the industries.
“Through collaboration in partnership with Skills Ontario, WiRE, Women of PLT and many others, we are able to provide students, parents and educators with authentic representation from those of us who not only talk the talk but walk the walk.”
Over the last 30 years, Skills Ontario has built a portfolio of programs including in-school presentations reaching 125,000 students across Ontario, career exploration summer camps, Young Women’s and First Nations, Métis, and Inuit Career Exploration Conferences, and annually hosting Canada’s largest skills competition which attracts 37,000+ spectators who cheerlead the 2,400+ competitors in 68+ trades and tech categories. To see how you can partner with Skills Ontario and help make a difference in the lives of Ontario’s youth, visit skillsontario.com/get-involved.
KickAss Careers works to engage, educate and encourage youth to consider career pathways in skilled trades and technology.
“At KickAss Careers our target audience is your future workforce,” said McMillan. We “teach the young hands of today to build the world of tomorrow.”
Women in Renewable Energy (WiRE) is inclusive and educates on all renewable and emerging energy technologies with chapters in St. John’s, Halifax, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Mississauga, Windsor, Calgary, Edmonton, Saskatchewan and Vancouver and Kamloops. WiRE has expanded with its 1st International Launch in Istanbul, Turkey with the Canadian Embassy and as of 2019 WiRE has expanded to Tbilisi Georgia, Baku Azerbaijan and Amman Jordan.
Women of Powerline Technicians officially launched in September of 2016. Women of Powerline Technicians is the national not-for-profit organization committed to increasing women in trade and technical roles in Canada’s electricity sector and beyond. Our vision is to see men and women represented on every distribution operations crew.