Young Women’s Expo highlights resources

By Carolyn Sloan

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Keeping young women in rural Nova Scotia is the subject matter for a project being conducted by the Women’s Place Resource Centre and funded by the Rural Secretariat.

As part of this project, the resource centre and Nova Scotia Advisory Council on the Status of Women sponsored the Young Women’s Expo on November 17 at the Nova Scotia Community College’s Lawrencetown campus to highlight some of the resources available to young women looking to be able to live and work in their own rural communities. “The results of this project has been overwhelming,” said project coordinator Wendy Knowlton. “In addition to the many community organizations who came on board, we have officials representing every level of government here this morning. They’ve taken time on a Saturday morning to be here specifically to send the message that you, the young women of rural Nova Scotia, are important and valued.”

Provincial Minister of Environment and Labour and MLA for King’s North Mark Parent was first to address the room full of young women. “Finding opportunities close to home is particularly pressing, particularly challenging for our province considering…the extensive human resource market that’s happening across Canada now, where other provinces, and indeed, other countries are coming after our young people and trying to entice them to work there.”

The minister spoke of his own return to rural Nova Scotia, to his roots, and encouraged the young women to take advantage of several government programs geared toward young women and youth, including Women Unlimited, which focuses on getting businesses to train and recruit more women, the Youth Apprenticeship Strategy, which encourages young people to explore trades through community based learning, and an additional provincial initiative geared toward increasing the number of young women working in skilled trades, technologies and sciences. “Nova Scotia needs young people in trades and technology more than ever,” said Parent. “We expect many more thousands of jobs to open up across the province within the next year, and the government departments and agencies, and their partners, are working to recruit young people, and in particular, young women.”

He added that the percentage of women working in trade and transport jobs since 1991 has barely increased. “Today, the figure is just over three per cent,” said Parent. “In other words, getting women to pursue what are considered non-traditional career opportunities continues to be a challenge, but at the same time, it’s a missed opportunity.”

On the brighter side, the minister spoke of the fact that today, 60 per cent of students at university are women. Women also account for 58 per cent of civil servants, he added, and more than half of the deputy ministers in the province of Nova Scotia.

SPEAKER LIZ RIGNEY

From the newsroom of Live at 5, a CTV show that’s produced and directed by women, journalist Liz Rigney came before the audience as the keynote speaker for the event. She held up her Canadian and American passports, explaining that while she could work anywhere in North America, she chooses to live in the Maritimes. “If you can find your passion and a way to do it in your own community, that’s the key,” she said. “You have to believe that you can do something. If you love something that much, if you have a passion about something, it will happen.”

Rigney showed three features she had created for Live at 5, all focusing on women who had successfully pursued their dreams while living in rural communities. “It’s not that you should never leave,” she explained. “I mean, absolutely, I think it’s important to leave and I’ve travelled to all four corners of the world. “And the great thing about being away is not only do you learn about yourself, but when that plane comes into the Halifax airport, every time the eyeballs get all red and well up.”

The speaker talked about the poverty she had seen, but also the joy of those who do not have material wealth. Happiness is not just about money, she suggested. Rural communities provide support, a sense of togetherness, and a kind of natural wealth. “The interesting thing about seeing people in second and third world countries, a lot of them are very happy people,” Rigney noted. “What could they possibly have that would make them happy? They don’t have money. They have each other. They have their families… they have support. “So whoever made the earth…when they created happiness, they didn’t make it something not everyone could get. Happiness is completely achievable by everyone.”