Siksika career and job fair targets youth

Melissa Strle
Times Reporter

 

Youth will be the focus at the Siksika Employment and Career Fair, but the fair is also open to everyone from surrounding communities, including Strathmore, Gleichen, Brooks, Bassano and Vulcan.
To be held at the Siksika Community Centre on Oct. 19 from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., the fair will focus on youth from the Siksika Nation, with the slogan: “Building on our future and never give up on your goals.”
Leon Crane Bear, business industry liaison for Siksika Employment and Training Services, helps organize and plan the career fair twice a year and said he would “like to see it succeed.”
He is hoping to provide a fair amount of businesses at the fair.
The fair aims to potentially connect youth with various institutions regarding their careers, but also aims to help connect the Siksika Nation at large with potential employers.
Bear said the businesses he’s talked to have identified a need for partnerships with aboriginal communities.
“There is this cooperation from the business community to reach out to aboriginal communities in regards to employment opportunities,” he said. “I think we’ll get a decent turnout. Right now at the office we get a lot of calls from people looking for employment.”
The fair will provide the means for institutions and employers to network. There will be approximately 30 vendors attending, including the Red Cross which will have representatives on hand to discuss volunteer opportunities.
Richard Rodgers, director of outreach at the Strathmore Overnight Shelter, has done a lot of the footwork in handing out registrations to increase vendor participation at the career fair. He has covered the areas of Strathmore, Brooks and Calgary.
Rodgers stated that the fair “is a good resource for individuals to receive training, computer skills and job opportunities.”
Bear said some companies recruit more often and have expressed a direct interest specifically in Siksika Nation. Hines Industries is an industrial janitorial service that services the oil industry in Fort McMurray and they will be recruiting at the fair. The company currently employs Siksika Nation members in the Fort McMurray area and is still in discussions for more people to go up north.
“Right now it’s kind of wait and see, but they did express more interest in hiring more nation members to go up,” Bear said. “But that’s still in negotiations.”
Arctic Arrow will also be hiring. The company is a sub-contractor to AltaLink and they would like to hire Siksika Nation people to work in setting up industrial electricity transmission lines. Bear said AltaLink expressed the need to connect with aboriginal communities since projects cross traditional lands of the Blackfoot people.
Visco is a demolition construction company that is also looking to hire aboriginal labour. The company has been contracted to clean up local resort Hidden Valley as a result of the 2013 floods.
In addition to employers, some educational institutions that will be in attendance include Bow Valley College, Chinook Lodge, SAIT, Lethbridge University, Lethbridge College, Olson College, Mount Royal University and Robertson College. There may also be some additional educational institutions on hand.
There will be another Siksika career and employment fair coming next spring. Bear said the larger spring fair in 2017 will look at garnering broader companies such as Air Canada and its subsidiary Jazz.
“They [Air Canada] are always looking for employees,” she Bear.
According to Bear, the labour pool in Siksika is very broad and includes people who are general labourers all the way up to people who have engineering certificates or degrees.
Siksika Employment and Training Services posts jobs for job seekers, and their service providers will be in attendance at the fair to aid people in finding jobs with services such as building resumes and cover letters and helping with computer training.