Group of Bilijk youth get hands-on lessons in value of skilled trades
Workshops aimed at sparking interest in trades among Indigenous youth
After spending four Saturdays learning the basics of different skilled trades from plumbing and electrical to cooking, 12-year-old Sutter Dean says he has a new found appreciation for these careers.
"I didn't think there were as many as there were," he said.
Dean was one of six youth from Bilijk, about 40 kilometres west of Fredericton, who could be found one Saturday morning at the end of November cooking up a storm of bacon, eggs, bannock bread pizza, and squash soup.
It was the final day in a series of trades-focused workshops called the All-Trades Youth Camp. Along with cooking, the group also got hands-on lessons in carpentry, plumbing and electricity.
"It takes a lot of time and effort. And there's so much you can do with it ... there's so many opportunities for work and trades," Dean said.
Gabe Isaac, Indigenous projects and apprenticeship co-ordinator with the Joint Economic Development Initiative, facilitated the workshops. He said he wants to promote awareness of skilled trades to bring more Indigenous inclusion to New Brunswick's economy.
"Any building you look at, a tradesperson has built that building" he said. "Any structures, bridges, these are all things we need tradespeople for and trades are a more hands-on kind of career."
Challenging misconceptions
Isaac said trades are a "dying art," and yet all of them are in demand.
He said running these workshops is a lot about challenging misconceptions about these trades and showing young people how important and fulfilling they can be.
One misconception, Isaac says, is that trades are not lucrative.
"If you're just a guy off the street and you're like ... 'I want to hang drywall,' you know, it doesn't pay that much," he said.
"But if you get all the certification, you get that education, you become a skilled trades person — it's a good-paying job."
Isaac said there's sometimes also a false idea about the tradespeople themselves..
"Another misconception, it's for the dummies - it's not for the intelligent people," he said.
"I don't know if you know how much math goes into carpentry … or if you realize exactly how much measuring you have to do, and just knowing how to use a measuring tape, you know, there's a lot of knowledge that comes into these trades."
Isaac comes from a long line of tradespeople — both his father and grandfather were ironworkers — and he said many Indigenous youth come from similar family backgrounds.
He wants to foster more positive perceptions of trades work among Indigenous youth, and make sure they know that academic careers are not the only path to a successful life.
"You know, you got people running mills, you got people building structures, buildings, bridges, there's a lot of knowledge there. So people like to push off the trades 'that's the dumb peoples occupation, dumb people career,'" he said.
"There are so many intelligent people in these jobs living successful lives."
Bringing culture to the craft
"I love what I do and if I can help spark that in someone else, then I feel like I've done my job right," she said.
White said she can also inspire young Indigenous people to bring their culture to their craft — an element she tried to instill in her cooking lesson.
"We brought in the traditional Indigenous ingredients, which is a really important thing because there are so many out there that have been adopted by so many different people that it's hard to know which ones are traditional ingredients," she said.
"They really liked when the cultural pieces were put in. You could see the excitement. One of the kids referred to it as 'Sacred Saturday.'"
'I love cooking'
Enikws, 15, spent the morning baking a heart-shaped bannock pizza — his way of spreading love to the world
"I love cooking. My dad's a great cook, so is my mom. It's where I get it from. I love cooking, just being in the kitchen" he said.
He considered the culinary lesson to be his favorite of the four but found value in all of them.
"I think it's cool that they got us out here, using these tools and stuff and teaching us about them and how to be safe and precautious," Enikws said.
"This is something like my dad wanted me to go to sign me up for. So I was just like, 'I'm open for it. I'm open to new things'. I was a little nervous at first, but I'm kind of glad I'm here."
Both Enikws and Dean particularly enjoyed White's culinary workshop. Enikws, whose passion is for music, enjoys cooking for people he cares about and said he could see himself working in culinary in the future.
"Not like, not Gordon Ramsey stuff, but yeah, maybe like a chef or something," said Enikws.
"I love cooking. I love cooking and baking. It's one of my favourite things to do at home. So I really enjoyed this week." Dean said.
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