The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum is seeking apprentice interviews until March 19, 2010

The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum is seeking apprentices who would be willing to be profiled on their website in order to encourage young people to become apprentices and to provide them with information on ways in which to find an employer/sponsor. We sent you an email last week and we have made some important changes. We will be profiling 15 – 20 apprentices and will be distributing a $50 honorarium for selected participants. Interviews will be conducted until Friday, March 19, 2010. We are flexible to interview during evenings and weekends as well as during daytime hours.

Attached is an invitation to participate. We would appreciate it if you could pass it on to apprentices who you feel might be interested. As well, if you could post it on the bulletin board of your local’s office and/or training centre, as well as distribute it on your mailing list that would be very much appreciated.

Thank you for your help. If you have any questions, please call Paul Bakker, 1-877-469-9954 x226.

Best Regards,

Jennifer Logan

Cathexis Consulting Inc.

124 Merton St., Suite 502
Toronto, Ontario M4S 2Z2

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En Français:

Madame/Monsieur,

Le Forum canadien sur l’apprentissage est à la recherche d’apprentis qui accepteraient d’avoir leur portrait publié sur son site Web afin d’encourager les jeunes à devenir des apprentis et de leur fournir des informations sur la manière de trouver un employeur parrain. Nous vous avons envoyé un courriel la semaine dernière et nous avons fait des changements importants. Nous souhaitons faire le portrait de 15 à 20 apprentis et nous distribuerons une rétribution de 50$ aux candidats sélectionnés. Les entretiens auront lieu jusqu’au vendredi 19 mars 2010. Nous sommes flexibles sur les horaires et sommes prêts à interviewer le soir, le week-end ou dans la journée.

Vous trouverez ci-joint une invitation pour participer à cette initiative. Vous serait-il possible de la distribuer à des apprentis qui vous semblent intéressés par cette initiative ? Nous apprécierions si vous pouviez aussi afficher cette invitation sur le tableau d’affichage de votre bureau local et/ou du centre de formation ainsi que de le distribuer dans votre liste de diffusion courriel.

D’avance, je vous remercie pour votre aide. Si vous avez des questions, n’hésitez pas à contacter Sandra Moreau au 1-877-469-9954 x300

Cordialement,

Jennifer Logan

Cathexis Consulting Inc.

124 Merton St., Suite 502

Toronto, ON M4S 2Z2

Are You Interested in Being Profiled on the

Canadian Apprenticeship Forum (CAF) Website?

The CAF is looking for apprentices who have been successful in

finding an employer sponsor.

We want to hear about:

What influenced you to apprentice in your trade?

How you went about finding an employer?

What challenges you faced?

How you addressed those challenges?

What advice would you give young people on how to find an

employer sponsor?

We are looking for people from across Canada in any of the Red

Seal trades. We also want the profiles to cover the full range of

diversity including women, visible minorities, Aboriginal people

and people with disabilities. If selected for an interview, you will

receive a $50 honorarium. We will be conducting interviews until

Friday, March 19, 2010.

If you are willing to tell your story and have it profiled on the CAF-FCA website along

with sending us a photo of yourself, please call or email Paul Bakker with your

preferred time for an interview (evening, weekend, lunch hour, etc.).

Telephone: 1-877-469-9954 x226

Email: paul@cathexisconsulting.ca

Home Depot helps struggling tradespeople with scholarships

Job Front: Construction trade scholarships offered

Buzz up!

By Darrell Smith
dvsmith@sacbee.com

Published: Monday, Feb. 15, 2010 - 12:00 am | Page 5B

Building a career in the construction trades? Home Depot wants to help.

The Atlanta-based home improvement giant recently rolled out its Trade Scholarship Program, offering $1 million in scholarships to craftspeople receiving training in the building and construction trades.

The scholarships will help pay for students' tuition and tools, said Home Depot spokesman Stephen Holmes.

The scholarship program, in its second year, comes amid difficult times in the building industry.

The $1 million fund will provide 500 $1,000 scholarships and matching $1,000 grants for qualifying trade schools.

"With the economy as it is and budgets the way they are, schools are struggling to find the basic things they need," Holmes said.

The Sacramento area has been especially hard hit by the housing crisis, contributing to a jobless rate above 12 percent.

"Times are tough, but there are skilled tradespeople still out there. There are a lot of contractors who are required to take continuing education. We want to do our part to encourage future tradespeople," Holmes said.

Apply online at www.homedepot.com/tradescholarship. For more information, visit the Web site or call (877) 743-5327.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/02/15/2537356/job-front-construction-trade-scholarships.html

Women in Construction 30 Years & Still Organizing

Showing no terms but equal terms:
'On Equal Terms: Women in Construction 30 Years & Still Organizing'
Erica Lawton
Issue date: 1/28/09 Section: Arts

A poetry reading by Susan Eisenberg, sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program, is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 6, 1 to 2:15 at the Poetry Center, Sawyer Library.

Light refreshments will be provided.

A panel presentation on the historical and legal developments affecting women in the building trades will include Susan and other speakers. The event is Friday, March 6, 1 to 2:30
PM, location TBA.

On Melinda Hernandez's first day of work on a construction site in the late 1970s, she followed instructions. Having recently completed a two-month government funded training and bought a brand new tool belt, she navigated the rough terrain to find the electrician's shanty and reported to the foreman that she was ready to work.

In her words, "He looked at me and he says, 'Yes, little girl, what is it? Did your father leave his tools home?'"

As one of the many disenfranchised voices that occupy and inform the work of artist and master electrician Susan Eisenberg, Hernandez is not alone. As a tradeswoman pioneer in the early days of government-directed employment affirmative action, however, lonesome was just the beginning.

"On Equal Terms: Women in Construction 30 Years & Still Organizing" exposes the discrepancies between public policy and on the job procedure that women in building trades have been struggling with since the first executive order mandated gender equity in hiring practices in 1978. Despite these promises of gender equality enforced through affirmative action, today women still make up no more than three percent of the workforce in construction trades.

Through poetry, nonfiction and mixed media installations, Eisenberg has channeled the hope and disappointment, the rejection and the camaraderie of working where no woman had before into a different constructed environment. The exhibit, currently on display at the Adams Gallery at Suffolk University Law School, draws on testimonies from Eisenberg's book, "We'll Call You if We Need You: Experiences of Women Working Construction," a New York Times notable work of 1999, and poems excerpted from "Pioneering: Poems from the Construction Site," a collection she published in 1998, as well as interactive pieces reflective of her trade.

Two bright yellow ladders marked by caution tape lend themselves to a break in the removable tile ceiling while words on separate steps inquire, "How High Can You Reach Now," in a piece that addresses the (dis)advantages of physical size on the job.

A bridge is built on a pastel frosted cake, with support beams of rainbow twizzlers, flanked by mini plastic hammers, screwdrivers and wrenches. Pink icing on the sides of the confection says proudly, "My kids know which bridges in town are mine," reflecting the dual duties of tradeswomen mothers.

Next door Eisenberg has built a mock-up of a construction site toilet shanty, constructed of rough plywood and decorated with lewd graffiti typical of a working man's Port-a-Potty. Complete with an actual toilet, viewers are invited to hunker down and listen via headphones, coming from the first aid kit attached to the wall, to the many tradeswomen Eisenberg has interviewed over the years.

The artist explained in a phone conversation this past Monday that she was hoping the shack would, "give people a little window into that vulnerability," felt by the women who faced raw, often graphic discrimination daily.

In addition to working as an electrician and a tradeswoman activist for 15 years, Eisenberg received her Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Warren Wilson College in North Carolina and went on to travel as a lecturer with a special focus on labor and women's rights. Since 1987 she has been teaching as the College of Public and Community Service at the University of Massachusetts Boston, where she met Patricia Reeve, assistant professor at Suffolk specializing in working class and labor history and histories of gender and women. The two quickly became friends, bonding over joint interests and work experience working toward labor and gender equality.

Now acting as Humanist for On Equal Terms, which is funded by the Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities and Public Policy and sponsored by the Center for Women's Studies at Brandeis University, Reeves has helped facilitate the installation here at Suffolk University.

Describing her friend's work as an articulation of the struggle to "reconcile political ideals and our social realities," Reeves believes that there is still much work to be done in the fight for equity. While most who enter the gallery will likely have no familiarity with construction or working a trade, Reeves hopes that they realize that injustice permeates every career path.

"If the threshold for equity is low in one sector of the workforce it is low everywhere," she said, reinforcing the need for solidarity amongst women and their male allies.

Change may be on the tip of the nation's tongue today, but both Eisenberg and Reeves realize the great challenge in transforming political rhetoric into public action. While struggling to meet that demand, the voices of the forerunners of the cause may help to build hope.

As Melinda Hernandez said, "All these things are just fighting for your rights. But to them, it's radical, because you're making them face the fact that you're here to stay. And not on their terms, on equal terms."

A poetry reading by Susan Eisenberg, sponsored by the Women's and Gender Studies Program, is scheduled for Friday, Feb. 6, 1 to 2:15 at the Poetry Center, Sawyer Library. Light refreshments will be provided.

A panel presentation on the historical and legal developments affecting women in the building trades will include Susan and other speakers. The event is Friday, March 6, 1 to 2:30 PM, location TBA.

On Equal Terms: Women in Construction 30 Years & Still Organizing

http://media.www.suffolkjournal.net/media/storage/paper632/news/2009/01/28/Arts/Showing.No.Terms.But.Equal.Terms-3601234.shtml