Students in the Kitikmeot are listening
Kerry McCluskey
Northern News Services
Kitikmeot (Dec 04/00) - When opportunity knocks on the door to Bobby Keknek's future, he will be ready to answer.
The 18-year old Gjoa Haven resident knows the first step is completing his education.
"It's worth it to me," said Keknek.
A Grade 11 student at Qiqirtaq high school, Keknek knows the mines that will pop up on the Kitikmeot tundra need hundreds of workers, and that the best jobs will go to those with training and education.
The Kitikmeot Employment Fair 2000, a joint-venture of Kitikmeot Employment and Training Partners and the Nunavut department of education, was organized for students like Keknek.
The fair showcased the opportunities open to youth, and gave students in all five Kitikmeot communities an opportunity to form career goals and learn how to achieve them.
Mining industry
"I'd like to be a geologist and I learned I have to go through university and study science," said Keknek.
"I was looking at mining, at the diamond mines. It was exciting," he said.
Kugluktuk's Theresa Westwood found "the Tahera Project really interesting. There's all kinds of different jobs there."
"I'm really into biology and the land so I think I might be an environmental specialist," said Westwood, 16.
Tahera requires employees to have at minimum a Grade 12 education.
Westwood said she will go a step further and earn a university degree. She is ready for the six years it will take her to complete high school and university.
"I'll get more experience and education and then get more job opportunities and career openings," said the Kugluktuk high school student.
"If you just drop out of school and don't continue with your education, you don't have as many doors opening as if you continued on."
The message
Erin Simonot, a career development officer for the department of education, said the workshops stressed the importance of learning.
"Stay in school, that was the message," said Simonot from her office in Cambridge Bay.
"It was very well attended. The kids got a view to the future and they got to see what kind of things are available and what funding is out there," she said.
Beatrice Bernhardt, the employment and training co-ordinator for the Kitikmeot Inuit Association, said youth and adults in her region are preparing themselves for the boom in jobs that mining will bring.
The fair showed people that driving truck isn't the only job option at a mine. The toughest part she said, was getting students to realize the time commitment involved in training for those positions.
"A lot of people didn't realize the mining industry is very technologically advanced," she said.
"They know they have to go elsewhere for training, but the idea of that length of time away is hard for them."
The employment fair encouraged students to persevere, and stressed that the benefits would be worth more than the sacrifice.
"We need to keep bringing the message home that it will be worth it. (Youth) have so many opportunities being handed to them on a silver platter," she said.
"I'd like to see them understand that."
