Mining company makes million-dollar investment into women in trades

A Saskatoon-based uranium mining company is investing heavily into the future of women in trades.

Jim Corman, Orano Canada’s president and CEO, announced Tuesday a donation of $1 million to Saskatchewan Polytechnic, to be spread over the next 10 years.

The money is earmarked for the Women in Trades and Technology (WITT) program, to help increase awareness, enrolment and training opportunities for women in Saskatchewan trades. In recognition of the donation, the program will now be called “WITT — Powered by Orano.”

Allison Zerr, program head for WITT, said 47 per cent of Canada’s labour force is women, but women only represent five per cent of the workers in high-demand trades.

Zerr said the school is still planning exactly how to best utilize the million-dollar donation.

Kyra Stefanek, a second-year apprentice residential carpenter with All Square Developments Ltd., said she’s excited for what the donation means for women entering the trades in the future.

Stefanek said she began a pre-employment program in January last year. She said she spent four months in the program and then two weeks in a work placement program before she secured her position in the industry.

The program was surprising at first, Stefanek said, particularly because the way her course at Saskatchewan Polytechnic ran was very new to her.

“You do eight hours of something and then you write a test,” Stefanek said. “It’s a lot of information really quickly.”

Despite the rapid delivery of information, Stefanek said the program equipped her with the tools and terminology she would need to work in the industry, particularly as she had no background experience to draw from when she first started.

“This wasn’t my world. People were actually quite shocked when I chose to go into this,” she said with a chuckle. “It’s not like I did woodworking in my spare time for fun.”

Despite starting the program without any prior experience, Stefanek said she was equipped to start her work position and apprenticeship by the time her four months were up.
“I felt really comfortable heading into the industry,” she said.

Stefanek said she thinks there will be many more women entering trades in the coming years, partially because tradespeople are becoming more respected as time goes by.

“I cannot explain the satisfaction of building something with your hands,” Stefanek said. “It was not something that I was expecting to be so satisfying.”