Girls line up to learn skilled trades
Conference aims to help high school students explore non-traditional career paths
Adozen Darth Vaders cluster around a metal table in Humber College’s trade and technology centre. They watch as another masked member of the group presses the trigger of a welding gun, sending a dazzling spray of sparks in every direction.
Less than a minute later when the smoke clears and all the autodarkening helmets come off, everyone is back to being high school girls in ponytails and earrings. Except now they are duly impressed with the fiery demonstration by their classmate, who is 15 and has never touched this kind of equipment in her life.
“I was curious to know how it works, and it’s cool,” says Lara Salvador, a Grade 10 student at Loretto College School in Toronto, still looking a little agog after her first welding experience.
“But holding it still was hard, and your arm gets tired.”
Lara likes science and learning new things, so she jumped at the chance to be first in line at the workshop, which was one of 12 offered during a special daylong event at Humber attended by 300 girls from Toronto Catholic high schools.
The fourth annual Women Entering Non-Traditional Trades conference was aimed at opening their eyes to the possibilities of careers in the skilled trades.
Before visiting the welding lab, Lara learned how to cut copper pipe and glue the joints together at the plumbing workshop.
Elsewhere on campus, teenage girls were hammering and sanding their own wooden tool boxes in the home construction centre, learning basic wiring techniques in the electricians’ shop, and getting hands-on experience in heating and air, auto mechanics and cooking in an industrial kitchen.
The event for Toronto Catholic District School Board girls is funded by the province as part of its commitment to promote skilled trades. It’s held in partnership with the Ontario Youth Apprenticeship Program, which offers apprenticeships to Grade 11 and 12 students through their school co-op programs, giving them the opportunity to work toward certification in a skilled trade while earning a high school diploma. “We want to make sure when they come in they engage in hands-on activities, and that they’re not just listening, they’re doing,” says Luciano Di Loreto, the apprenticeship project leader with the board.
As a result of growing demand, this year the board added a second day for Grade 7 girls, with 300 attending workshops last month at Bishop Marrocco/Thomas Merton Catholic Secondary School.
The Toronto District School Board also runs a trades summit for girls.
High youth unemployment and a shortage of workers trained in the skilled trades have prompted the province, industry associations and schools to turn more attention to promoting those fields to young women, especially the “non-traditional” ones for girls, such as plumbing and welding. When it comes to young women entering the field, Di Loreto says change does not come easily.
“We are getting more interest each and every year but it’s a very slow process,” he says. Roughly one in 10 apprenticeships go to women, and fewer in trades like welding, where women make up only 7 per cent of new registrants, electrical (4 per cent) and carpentry (3 per cent.)
That’s despite the fact that many girls become quickly engaged once they get exposed through school, and often score higher than their male counterparts when they enrol in apprenticeship programs.
He’s not the only one in the building who claims women have the dexterity and eye for detail found in the best tradespeople, especially when it comes to cabinetmaking, electrical and automotive trades.
But changing attitudes is difficult, particularly among parents, he adds.
“I wish we’d had something like this when I was younger,” Humber welding student Shannon Blake says as she watched the high school girls arrive for their session.
At 33, she recently discovered her passion for welding by accident after years of working at office jobs and realizing she’d rather do something hands-on.
“I like to feel that reward at the end of the day when I can see my work,” says Blake, who is the only female in her class of 13. “People think it’s rough and you need to be strong, but really it’s just a skill,” she adds, flashing her perfectly manicured pink fingernails.
Attracting more females would change workplace cultures, and provide women with new career opportunities they may not have considered or which were previously not seen as serious options for women.
“It’s like opening a new door,” says student Sophia Siciliano, over the banging of hammers in Humber’s home construction workshop, where the scent of lumber hangs in the air.
The Grade11student at Loretto College says her teachers encouraged girls to attend the event as a learning opportunity.
Around her, girls in safety goggles were pounding nails into pieces of wood to build tool boxes.
“Bring your elbow in closer,” Jarek Wawrow, home renovation program co-ordinator, reminds one girl struggling to keep the nail going in straight. It’s all about using the science of levers to let the tool do the work, he says. “Don’t choke up on the hammer.”
At another table it’s clear that Angelica Nerizon, 16, knows her way around a tool box. Her dad’s an electrician and she sometimes gives him a hand. But the Grade 11 student at Father John Redmond Catholic Secondary School still wanted to come and get a glimpse of the other handson careers she might consider down the road.
For high school teacher Nicole Ross, the day was a chance for girls “to get their hands dirty” but also realize how much science, math, artistry and creativity is part of the skilled trades.
Ross, who graduated from university with a degree in chemistry, stumbled upon carpentry through an odd job on a construction site while travelling in New Zealand. It changed her life. Instead of pursuing postgraduate studies, she set out to become a qualified carpenter and now teaches construction at Bishop Allen Academy.
Knowing how to create and fix things builds confidence, she says. And exposing more girls to those skills and the career options that come with them is more important than ever, adds Ross, 32, who is now renovating her own house and has a sister who works as a scaffolder on Toronto highrises.
“Don’t be afraid to try,” she told the 300 girls in her opening address. “You never know.”
“I like to feel that reward at the end of the day when I can see my work. People think it’s rough and you need to be strong, but really it’s just a skill.” SHANNON BLAKE HUMBER WELDING STUDENT