BUILDING OPPORTUNITY
Abdullahi Farah hadn’t considered career in trades until new placement program opened his eyes,
The trades never felt like an option for Abdullahi Farah.
“All they hear is university,” the 22year-old sheet-metal worker said of his family here and “back home” in Ogaden, the small territory between Ethiopia and Somalia where his mother is from.
“I can’t blame them; (they) are thinking, ‘Hey, I didn’t come to this country for our son to be a labourer.’ ”
Farah did go to university — to Ryerson for information technology, and to York for business management for two years — but he’s finding his own way of achieving his “big goals” by starting an illustration business, which he works on during his days off.
He is now in the first of a five-year apprenticeship in sheet metal, working at a construction site in a suburb north of the city. His goal is to grow his side project enough to be able to sustain himself.
And after stints in Alberta and a year searching for work, Farah says he’s finally closer to achieving his goals.
He would never have thought of a career in the trades if he hadn’t heard of a program connecting major infrastructure projects — the Crosstown light-rail transit system planned for his area of Eglinton Ave., and the others planned for Sheppard and Finch Aves. — and the communities that live in them.
He learned of sheet-metal working through the Toronto Community Benefits Network (TCBN). Started in 2013 with the help of United Way, the network helps community groups, local and provincial government and employers to hire in highunemployment neighbourhoods affected by the LRT construction.
“It’s been a way for us to think about how we connect residents that are looking for opportunities with employers, who are looking for skilled workers,” said Pedro Barata, United Way Toronto vice-president of communications. “This project — and our contribution to it — is really to connect the dots.”
One of the challenges facing the TCBN in including local communi-
“It’s been a way for us to think about how we connect residents that are looking for opportunities with employers, who are looking for skilled workers. This project . . . is really to connect the dots.” PEDRO BARATA UNITED WAY TORONTO VICE-PRESIDENT OF COMMUNICATIONS
ties in projects, the network’s president Prince Sibanda said, is to change the hiring practices of unions in the city. It has done that by presenting them with “a pool of prequalified candidates that we already screened to them.”
The TCBN helps ensure the candidates have the basic skills needed to enter an apprenticeship.
The agreement between Metrolinx and the TCBN, Sibanda said, provides a “prototype” for similar provincial projects in the future.
That’s where Bowen LaFave comes in.
An organizer at the Sheet Metal Workers’ and Roofers’ union (Local 30), LaFave attended one of the network’s public meetings. At the urging of a friend, Farah was there, too.
He called LaFave the next day and soon went through an “aptitude test” and a six-week crash course on the trade. The next step was to find an employer willing to take on someone with no experience in it, which he says wasn’t easy.
“It’s like, ‘Is this kid good or not?’ because you’re kind of a risk,” Farah said. “I kind of moved my way up.” Getting to know the experienced workers and terms for the tools they needed, which he wrote in his hard hat, was tough at first. The work is also physically demanding: “Compared to half of the guys I was work- ing with, I was on the skinnier side, so I couldn’t lift as much as them. But I went twice as fast as them,” he said.
Farah now speaks at seminars similar to the one he attended, telling young people, “If you really want to do it . . . once you break through, you’re going to be good.”
Despite his lack of experience in the field, it’s the young worker’s positive attitude that made him, in LaFave’s eyes, the guy for the job.
“I liked his attitude, and that’s big thing for me,” LaFave said.
Farah says he has his mother, who raised him by herself by working two jobs, to credit for his work ethic.
“She’s my biggest role model.”