Pre-Employment Assistance Program graduates nine participants

The Akwesasne Economic Development Agency (AEDA) partnered with the Akwesasne Area Management Board (AAMB) to develop a Pre-Employment Assistance Program back in March of 2007. The goal of the project was to give additional training and job placements to job seekers who needed a little boost to land that job they’ve been searching for. Dan Garrow of AAMB and Adrian McDonald of AEDA worked together to come up with a plan to make this idea a reality.

A new curriculum was developed based on the suggestions of the first Pre-Employment class along with a schedule which made the program a 12 week training session and a 4 week job placement for each participant. Once the proposal was tweaked and approved the selection process started for the participants. 10 participants were chosen after the application and interview process. The participants formally began training on January 14th.

The curriculum consisted of two stages broken into two six-week sessions designed to build up the participant’s skills and knowledge. Adrian McDonald, AEDA Trainer/Facilitator, presented the majority of the curriculum. The first workshop presented was “The gift of self-esteem”. This was a tough workshop, but it built up the participant’s self-esteem and steeled their character to a point where no one can ever bring them down. From that point on the participants had a hard resolve to finish the training and get that job that had been eluding them.

The curriculum included a comprehensive computer curriculum which all of them needed and wanted. AEDA has a state of the art computer lab with high-speed connectivity, which added to the learning experience. One participant, who could always be found at a computer during breaks, stated before the course “I couldn’t even turn a computer on” had really grasped the technology available. The participants learned windows, the internet; all of them now have email addresses and the course include the full suite of Microsoft Office. The final course being PowerPoint in which they all gave a 5 – 7 minute presentation.

Of course, they were encouraged to utilize the internet and immediately found that it was very addictive. Part of the course included basic typing and the participants all typed at 30 words per minute at the end of that segment. Before class, during breaks and after class the computer lab would be full with the tick, tick, and tick of the keyboards breaking the silence. The participants couldn’t say enough about the computer lab available at AEDA. They really enjoyed it and the features made available, even thought there were restrictions placed on the computers.

The course included Career Planning, Basic Tools, a Basic Safety Course, Time Management, Anger Management, Business Writing, Presentation Skills and Job Search – The Inside Track. During the Basic Tools workshop the students built an oversize picnic table from scratch. This included a lengthy visit to Home Depot. All the students used a circular saw, compound-sliding miter saw, jigsaw and a drill. Some for the first time and some for the last time.

The picnic table was stained and waterproofed and was a full 8 feet long, 6 feet wide and 3 feet tall making all other picnic tables look shamefully small. The table was sized to meet the demands of a “larger” population. The picnic table was raffled off by the students to raise money for a graduation luncheon. The raffle was held on March 28, 2008 and the lucky winner was James “McGraw” Buckshot. Delivery was included but the table couldn’t be delivered until April 4, 2008 to allow the snowbanks to melt down to a reasonable size.

During the training course the participants also attended sessions by the Eagle Spirit Teaching Lodge, a career fair hosted by the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino and Mohawk Bingo Palace, a Toastmasters Meeting held at Seaway Toastmasters in Cornwall and had mock interviews performed by Malcolm Robertson and Sandra McCuaig of Cornwall. All of these courses allowed the participants to find themselves and begin working toward a career that they really want to pursue.

Guest instructors also came in to present such as Helen Pyke, RN who taught First Aid and CPR, Malcolm Robertson, DTM of Seaway Toastmasters for public speaking, Jason McDonald, Deidre Rourke (former Pre-Employment Participant) and Joe Chamberlain of Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation program.

The one part of the training the students will never forget and will sorely miss is the table topics sessions that started every day. Table topics is a Toastmasters technique aimed at getting speakers to give a two minute impromptu speech that had a clear introduction, body and conclusion. The sessions began in baby steps with a roundtable discussion and week by week became a formalized session with an assigned Tabletopics Master, timer, “ah” counter, grammarian and evaluator. These sessions, along with the presentation skills workshop, made all of the participants become accomplished public speakers. A real achievement for all of them.

The twelve week training program ended with a graduation ceremony and luncheon at Kelsey’s. The Akwesasne Area Management Board was there to see the training session end and speak some words on the success of the project. Dan stated that these were not the same people who started the course three months ago after hearing some of the presentations.

A very heartfelt graduation ceremony was conducted with everyone praising the course and the success in which they had so much to do with. AEDA, AAMB and the participants have set the bar for future programs and that bar is set high. Congratulations go out to Heidi Jock, Anthony King, Deana Laughing, Charity Lazore, Sylvia Lazore, Tom Lazore, Jenifer Mitchell, Dawn Skidders and Tammy Terrance for completing the course and finding job placements in and around the community.

There is sure to be another Pre-Employment Assistance Course and it will be advertised on the radio and in the papers. If you have any questions regarding the Pre-Employment Assistance course contact Dan Garrow of AAMB at (613) 575-2626 or Adrian McDonald of AEDA at (613) 932-2923.