High-tech training centre targets aboriginal students
Last Updated: Monday, February 26, 2007 | 4:42 PM CT
CBC News
An old building in Winnipeg's core area will be renovated into a centre for aboriginal students training for jobs in the aerospace, manufacturing and construction industries.
More than $740,000 will be spent to create the high-tech Neeginan Institute of Applied Technology in a building near the Aboriginal Centre of Winnipeg on Higgins Avenue, with almost $500,000 of the funding coming from the federal government, it was announced Monday.
"We really hope that this innovative model developed here, the Centre of Aboriginal Human Resource Development, will become an inspiration for Canadian businesses and other organizations that are working on student training across Canada," Rona Ambrose, federal minister of western economic diversification, said Monday morning.
The new centre will help students like Kelly Spence, 35, who went back to school through the Neeginan Institute two years ago.
Today, Spence is working at Standard Aero as an aircraft technician and is also being trained as a detail inspector of engines.
In the past, students such as Spence attended classes in classrooms the institute rented throughout the city, but starting this spring, the students will be trained on-site at Neeginan.
"It's definitely well worth it," Spence said at the announcement. "I love my job. I love the company. It's the best decision I ever made in my life."
Nigel Kent, 23, also had words of praise for the Neeginan program — which he said had turned around his life — and is hoping to land a job at Boeing or Standard Aero.
"They are helping me to get ahead; they help to educate me," he said. "Knowledge is power. Maybe I'll get a good job, my own place, maybe a car."
The institute's programs are offered only when an employer commits to hiring the graduates, and students are selected jointly with employers. Several Manitoba businesses have already made a commitment to hiring graduates, including Border Glass, Standard Aero, Custom Steel and Boeing.
The institute hopes 250 students will graduate from its programs per year.
