On Friday, 14 students graduated from the course, funded by Work B.C. and organized by GT Hiring Solutions with Footprints Security. The program is offered for long-term social assistance recipients.
As each graduate was recognized at GT’s offices on Gorge Road East, it was clear that they came to the course through various avenues.
About 70 family and friends turned out for the
ceremony.
The security sector is eager for new workers, especially as festival season approaches, said Garth Yoneda, GT’s manager of community relations. The program was designed by the Justice Institute of B.C. and includes employment skills, basic security training, first aid and on-site work experience.
Graduates are arriving in the work force at an opportune time because Victoria’s unemployment rate was a tight 3.7 per cent in April — the lowest in Canada.
For program graduate Ben May, 34, the course “opens a lot of doors.”
May has experience in drywall, fishing and construction, but found himself wanting a new direction. May and partner Madeleine Chenoll are expecting a baby in mid-September. “It takes a lot of work to change your life, but I am not giving up. I will do everything that I can to give my baby and my girlfriend the lives they deserve.”
Attila Molnar, 56, is seeking work that will accommodate a troublesome knee. “I have been working all my life and I still want to work.”
Brothers Khaled Adlan, 40, and AmmarAdlan, 34, are government-sponsored refugees from Syria, arriving in Canada after just over three years in Egypt. On their graduation day, they held up a smartphone showing video of the boat their sister, was aboard as she crossed the Mediterranean Sea to Europe and relative safety.
The Adlans are part of a 12-member family in Victoria with young children to grandparents.
Looking at his two smiling sons who attended the ceremony, Khaled, a pharmacist in Syria, said that being in Canada provides a future for them. “It is a good life and safe.”
Valedictorian Daniel Ouelette, a newcomer to Victoria, has worked with social service agencies. He praised the course, saying it teaches future security workers to be “ambassadors in a way — security ambassadors.”
