Achievements
Despite the long list of challenges at the Lethbridge site, there were also
many achievements:
- one of the clients completed her Grade 12 and is considering
taking further post-secondary training;
- all of the clients worked together to develop several ideas for starting
their own businesses and/or using secondary processing for the produce
from the farms. They did a presentation to the farmers as well as a more
public presentation of their ideas and the products to a group of government
and economic development representatives. This included power point presentations, cooking,
presenting and the like. It was very well received and the clients were delighted
with their success. Several of them are interested in starting their own businesses.
- Several of the clients went on to employment in other sectors.
While they didn't get jobs immediately in the sector for which they were
trained, they did attribute their success (and their much more attractive and
comprehensive resumes) to what they learned from Bridging the Gap.
- In Lethbridge, the participants bagged and sold hampers of vegetables and were able to retain the
$3/hamper commission as an incentive to sell. This experience gave them good
hands on exposure to what the market is looking for in terms of price, quality,
packaging, sales convenience, etc. They have also been given exposure to the
owners and produce managers of stores and what they see in the local vegetable markets.
4.3 Clarenville
Highlights
In many ways the Clarenville site was one of the best and most
successful of the projects, but it can also be said it was the easiest.
Newfoundland Hardwoods as the employment partner is a longstanding company
with professional management and a unionized workforce. The work is highly
paid ($18/hour and up) and there is an existing work culture of the importance of safety,
human resource development and teamwork. In addition, the pool of potential
clients from which to draw was much larger (being situated in a centralized
service centre), with few, if any challenges of travel or geography.
However, this type of company is atypical for small isolated
areas of Newfoundland and Labrador. So, while all are delighted with the
success of the Clarenville site, it is, in some ways, not comparing apples to apples,
when you compare it to the other sites which have very different realities.
There were 8 clients in the Clarenville site.
Challenges
There were few challenges with the Clarenville site.
The clients loved the work, the company loved the project and the union was
delighted to see such an investment in their future members. It was a win–win
situation all around.
This is the only site of the five which was unionized,
and the union was brought in as a partner in all of the workings of Bridging
the Gap. There were no challenges around working in a unionized environment at this work site.
Achievements
The achievements were many:
- 100% employment and satisfaction for the participants;
- The first female in the history of Newfoundland Hardwoods to work outside of the office;
- A company wanting to participate in another Bridging the Gap and feeling
they benefitted enormously from the project.
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