This is an inspiring story, and I want to share it with you all. I have held down many jobs in my life, mostly in service and retail. However, at one point I was an amateur poker player too and that didn’t work out, so I left and became a filmmaker. I thought I would turn the lens on people who have made their career changes to discover just how they found their fit in society.
When I handed out my resume, they kept insisting that they wanted more experience even for a cleaning job. It’s not just about your minimum wage here, the cleaning job was with a small company. The objective here is that we want people to become financially self-sufficient. I can’t live on social assistance forever, so I was like, I need to do a career switch.
Well, you know what? These machines are very easy to handle once you get the hang of it. Okay, so what do you think guys? Do you all do this too? As for me, I had to make a career change to support my family.
For example, let me tell you about John Caldwell, he found himself unable to provide for his family on a subsidized income and decided to do something about it. Using the resources that were available at that time, he found a job that worked for him. But the toughest part of it all was deciding to change.
My name is Sue Kelly and I started work for Belgravia Local Cleaners at 132 Keckberry. London. UK. I’m the head honcho here, and I maintain this whole building. I make sure that everything is working properly here. I clean their units when and if I need to. So really, all the elderly people who live here are relying on me for a clean and safe environment.
I’m going to tell you all about what it was like before I got this job. It was hard and tuff at first but because I moved here and was on social assistance I could not find a proper job.
So, I put out my resumes, but I wanted to do something else different and I heard about the janitor jobs here and I thought I know a lot of people in London here, looking to hire janitors. They had this “learn as you earn” program and I was trained up and equipped with the technical knowledge and skills to handle this job.
What a great opportunity it was to discover the employment program, which led me to this rewarding career. The Coordinator here at that time was Ms. Brenda Trump and she was eager to talk to me and enroll me into the program. Let me tell you about the program itself, it was a 21-day training program.
It offers 5 different certificates in the field of janitorial service, so what each participant was essentially getting when they had completed this program are a “Building Maintenance Service” Certificate a “WMIS” Certificate, a “Health & Safety” certificate, a “First Aid” certificate and they get three days of computer certified training.
Today we are going to see people doing some hands-on work with the building service worker training. Here you will see that in the cleaning tool handling training, if you lift the handle of the tool straight up, the machine goes to the right. If you push straight down on it, the machine goes to the left. So, each student comes in here and they spend a couple of days here with us training on cleaning tools. We go through a lot of theories on cleaning, and there is a lot of hands-on training on cleaning. What we are trying to instill in our participants here is that probably the most important thing is an attitude. That is the main key element that I know most employers are looking for and I think it will serve you well. They only want to hire people who have a good work attitude, and good work ethic.
How do potential workers hear about this program? Well, the program is spread through different community resources that are out there. One of the biggest ones that we use is through “Work as You Earn” and I get a lot of referrals from this “WAYE” (for short) program.
We have even gone to put it on our website, which has made it a nice, easy way for people to access this kind of information. I met with Sue Kelly today the “Chief Executive Officer” of the Keckberry Native Society to learn how the program offers a great opportunity to qualified candidates. We have about 70 employees at Keckberry Native Society. We like to, as much as we can, hire more people. The fact that WAYE has an active program that trains these people is beneficial to us all.
Besides immigrants, these families are the fastest-growing demographic for this kind of job. So, one of your earliest participants was Sue Kelly, who started as a trainee and moved on the run the whole show here.
Can you tell me a little bit about her success story? Sure, she started, graduated, and had perfect attendance, and soon after she completed the program, she got to work as a full-time worker. And she is now taking care of this building, eventually, she took such pride in what she’s doing.
She loved her job, and soon the company flourished and eventually she was offered a real opportunity to be able to become financially independent and get away from income assistance.
If you want to improve your quality of life by finding work that fits you or at the very least support you till you can feed yourself and save some money, where do you find this kind of offer?
Well, WAYE is offering a direct growth opportunity for a growing economy.
We will teach you everything you need to know about this labor market, so you can align your skills and training today with the jobs for tomorrow. You’ll also find WAYE’s centers to connect you to employment services for specialized groups. From there, you will be pointed to programs and resources to help you learn new skills, like resume writing and job search techniques. It may even provide hands-on training.
WAYE’s tools can help you find useful employment statistics, such as regional demand, growth potentials, and wages. Kelly knew she needed a fresh start and she was well on her way to building a bright future for herself and her family. Since she got this job, it’s changed her life. Coming from a small village myself, there’s nothing but alcohol and drugs there, but now it’s different.
After completing her course, she said she got her first assignment at Belgravia Green Villas condo and she outdid most students according to the trainers.
It’s like, I now have a family and raising my children on my own and I could now support them. After talking with Kelly for the last time, I couldn’t help but feel impressed by her. She wanted to provide a better life for her family and took action to seek out opportunities that would fit in with her interests and needs.
She used the available resources to help herself get a fresh start and it is clear now she is on the road to success.
Here is a video on Carpet Cleaning Trainee ;