Camosun College has been delivering Women in Trades Training (WITT) for almost 10 years and has sponsored over 700 WITT participants. Camosun has recently expanded its WITT reach, partnering with Vancouver Island University (VIU) to offer the program to students outside of Victoria.
Camosun WITT program coordinator Sarah-Jayne Roe is enthusiastic about the partnership with VIU and believes that it will offer options to women all over Vancouver Island.
“We just decided that we wanted to expand the portfolio,” says Roe. “The chair of trades development and special projects, Olaf Nielsen, and I, we wanted to expand it and reach more people, get more people involved. It’s been so successful the last 10 years that it just seemed right. Now we can reach the whole south of the island.”
Camosun receives WITT funding through the provincial government’s Industry Training Authority, which sponsors people to go into foundations programs.
“Foundations is between six and 10 months long,” says Roe. “They come to the school completely green; by the time they leave, they will have the technical training for the level 1, and some work-based training hours. Another sponsorship we do is a women-only dedicated cohort, the Trade Sampling program, so they can try all the different trades in the college, and also now VIU.”
Roe says that there has been a slow increase of women entering the trades, and she is hopeful that the partnership with VIU will help.
“One of the biggest things in my role as the coordinator is to encourage women to network and to mentor,” says Roe. “To mentor each other, to peer support, to create a community with women in the trades. There hasn’t been a lot of women in the trades; the number is low.”
Roe says that the partnership with VIU will include program replication.
“Part of what I do is have women in trades speaker meetings, which is something that VIU is now replicating,” says Roe. “So, what we do here, we do there. We do mentor, as well as informal mentoring—we do breakfast every month where we invite all the sponsored women in the college, and we also try to invite as many of the others that aren’t sponsored as we can… Not all women need the sponsorship but it’s still important to make them part of the community that we are creating here.”
Roe believes that this partnership might also make it an easier process with the barriers that women face every day in the trades.
“Some of the barriers that women face is, obviously, going into a male-dominated trade,” says Roe. “They may not have had the experience when they were younger, like the men have had—a dad or uncle showing them what trades are about. That is one of the biggest barriers, as well as financial.”
Roe says that the WITT application process is more of a conversation than an interview.
“We just have to make sure that they know what they are going into,” says Roe. “That’s what is so good about the trade sampling program. They might come in and not quite know what they want to do, which trade they want to go into. In a trade sampling program, you can try all the trades that we have. We also do about six tours in the trade sampling program. This means they’ll go to construction sites, they’ll go to Seaspan, BC Ferries, some of the smaller companies as well.”
Roe says that the most important thing for women to remember is to not be afraid to go for it and, if they are interested, to apply for the program.
“There are so many women that have thought about it but never looked into it,” says Roe. “Don’t be afraid to give us a call. Come in and go on a tour, talk to other women, come to one of our breakfasts. There is always so much happening.”