TORONTO – Giving youth real world job skills is the goal of a new 4-H project.
Rural Employment and Life Skills (REAL) offers members certificates in programs ranging from handling food safely to recognizing hazardous materials.
“We saw value in giving members hands-on usable skills they could go somewhere with in terms of employment,” said Valorie Oickle, 4-H leadership co-ordinator for Nova Scotia Agriculture’s south shore region.
“A food handling course opens a door to get into a job but it also is knowledge they can use at home,” she said during the joint Canadian 4-H Leaders and Members conference in Toronto Nov. 3-7.
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“We thought if we gave them all that skills package, it was just as valuable as doing crafts,” Oickle said.
The program, open to those aged 14 and older, has been piloted in Nova Scotia for the last three years. It includes training in team building, leadership, communication and first aid in addition to job shadowing.
Oickle cited the case of one 4-Her who job shadowed in a greenhouse where she later got a job.
Jean Ward led eight members through the REAL project in western Nova Scotia.
“Half of them got jobs based on their portfolios,” she said.
Portfolios are comprised of job experience, training certificates and comments from employers.
Last year, REAL was added to a Grade 11 class in a rural school in Nova Scotia. The class formed a 4-H club, did business and financial planning and marketing, and job shadowed businesses that included a beef farm, farm equipment dealer and restaurant.
“This is something new and different and it will benefit them when they seek employment,” Ward said.
“It gives them another project to keep their enthusiasm in 4-H going.”
