Robert Grant is nowadays a master of several trades. His first barrier to maintain #employment was the sale of the house he had rented. Everything happens for a reason, though, and that made him move to the Alberni Valley where he found success again.
Many of you can relate to that as well as the need of using up your savings, relying on #EI, applying for #IncomeAssistance as a last resort when your #jobsearch takes from six months to four years. Another #barrier for the protagonist of this story is getting back his #driverslicence.
“When I went to #welfare, the lady there said that I was going to need a case manager and his name was David Chase. He was an excellent person. He put me into #courses that helped me with #computers, and he got me into the #FinishingTrades course. He got me into a #forkliftcourse, and I completed all of them with #certificates. Every course he put me on, I passed with #flyingcolours.
I had the opportunity, after I did the Finishing Trades course, to work with a #housebuildingcrew for #TrevanConstruction and those gentlemen were #excellent to #work for and they #taught me how to install a #roof on a #house. They taught me things I didn’t know, and I used these things from the trades course to actually do this job better.”
When asked about his time at North Island College, he declared: “I enjoyed working with Mr. Lawson. He is a great person and an excellent teacher, and he makes sure that everybody understands exactly what is being taught…The carpentry is where I actually took off and excelled. Before, I was not very good with wood.”
Now Robert is proud to be working for Recycle Matters which is INEO Employment Services’ Job Creation Partnership (#JCP). This 20-week pilot project employs three individuals (two general labourers and one business/office administrator) to work with a #supervisor and the #projectmanager to set-up a #mattressrecycling facility. The project is designed to support #skilldevelopment and #employmentexperience while developing a mattress recycling service that can transition to an employment and training #socialenterprise.
The #FinishingTrades course “has proven to be invaluable for setting up the shop and building the materials that we need to do our jobs… I hope this project succeeds. I’m sure it will. We’ve got a group of good guys who are so diverse… We actually get to resolve our problems instead of arguing. Good fit!”
Apart from the training and case management, what Robert appreciated the most about INEO was “the fact that everybody was happy, pleasant, kind and caring.”