Skills competition next week in city
Dave Sullivan
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Apr 20/01) - One hundred people are flying to Yellowknife and Fort Smith from all over the North next week to test their job skills against the best.
The third annual event, held in communities across Canada, will pit people in trades from electrical, hairdressing and mechanics against their peers. In all 18 trades will be represented at Skills Canada's Yellowknife competition.
"I feel strongly that the reason Northern kids aren't getting interested in trades and technology is because they're not introduced to it," says Allyson Stroeder, Executive Director for Skills Canada NWT.
Competitors will be arriving from as far as Nunavut. Some events, like carpentry, take place at Aurora College's Fort Smith campus.
Top guns from NWT will compete at the national level this June in Edmonton, and those winners get a trip to Seoul, South Korea in September. Electricians will have to wire a wall following a set of plans. Restaurant employees will be serving up salads, flambe's and deserts to VIP's in a makeshift restaurant set up in the gym of St. Pat's school. Mechanics will be presented with broken motors.
Competitors are put into categories such as high school students, apprentices and people already in the workforce.
Last year, a team of Sir John Franklin high school students finished second at the competition's national event.
They produced a television commercial.
"We've got quality in the North, we just have to highlight it," Stroeder said.
On April 22, six Yellowknife hair salons are teaming up in Centre Square mall for a cutathon to raise funds for the event. Skills Canada -- funded by Human Resources Development Canada, pays most of the bills. Stroeder estimates that airline tickets alone are worth $65,000, but sponsor First Air offered a big discount.
