New scholarship aims to bring more women into firefighting

Regina’s first female firefighter is trying to help other women get into the field.

Marrianne Boychuk is a retired firefighter who spent nearly 30 years in the profession. Now, in an effort to bring more women into the world of firefighting, she has created new scholarship offering up to $10,000 to any female firefighter starting their training at the Saskatchewan Emergency Response Institution.

(Marianne Boychuk/Submitted)

Boychuk recently appeared on the Greg Morgan Morning Show, where she said the scholarship will help to remove the obstacles preventing women from joining the profession.

“What it does is it removes one of the barriers for women to become firefighters, and it also promotes women getting into firefighting as a career choice,” she said.

“It’s an absolutely great career, and we do need some more women in the department to help balance things.”

She said the idea for her scholarship has been in the works for quite a while.

“Education was always regarded very highly in my family, so I thought about a scholarship at some point in my life, and then when Suncrest College approached me to teach at the fire college it just made sense to me that this would be the scholarship that I would set up,” said Boychuk.

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She explained that female firefighting hardly a new concept.

“There’s always been female firefighters around, like when the men went to war, who ran the communities? Who ran the fire departments? There’s always been volunteering, but not so much in the paid departments, and throughout my whole career all I wanted to do was empower women to become firefighters,” said Boychuk.

Last May, Boychuk helped her department host an information session for women that took them through different firefighting scenarios.

“They came in, put the gear on, cut up cars, used hose lines, put on masks, crawled around in simulated dark places and they did the dummy drag and they were so empowered. They walked out and, whether you wanted to become a firefighter or not, they did something they thought they couldn’t do and they have committed to keep that going,” said Boychuk.

Applications for the scholarship are being accepted from now until the closing date of Jan. 31.