Nunavik welding program moves students into the workforce

Welding students construct a metal shelf as part of a Kuujjuaq-based course the KSB ran this past summer. (PHOTO COURTESY OF THE KSB)

Annie Mary Anowak likes to work with her hands, outdoors, and she doesn’t let gender stereotypes get in her way.

The carpenter, firefighter and first responder from Umiujaq was looking to learn a new trade earlier this year, when she heard the Kativik School Board was offering a new welding program this past summer.

“I just wanted to get another certification of some kind, and when I heard about that, I thought ‘Awesome,’” Anowak said. “It was really amazing and I met some great people.”

Anowak was one of seven Nunavimmiut — and the only woman — who completed the course, which ran full-time from May until the end of August.

And the course paid off quickly, said instructor Bradley Moran. At least half the group has been offered jobs.

“It was a really good starter program,” said Moran, a Chateauguay, Quebec-based welder who taught the program out of a school board garage in Kuujjuaq.

Two of Moran’s students who interned at Glencore’s Raglan mine were hired and start work at the mine site in October.

The Northern Village of Kuujjuaq hired another graduate, while Anowak is waiting to hear back from a construction company which is looking for someone to do welding at a site in Puvirnituq.

“You know those metal steps you see outside of homes? That’s what I’d be doing.” Anowak said.

The KSB’s adult education program said other regional organizations in Nunavik flagged the need for a local welding program to help fill job needs in the region.

“We knew there was an interest, a need and the job market was there,” said Lisa Mesher, director of adult education at the KSB.

“We’re definitely looking at offering [welding] again.”

The school board opted to run the program as an intensive, summertime program, which allowed access to classroom resources normally tied up during the academic year.

Between Inukjuak’s vocational education centre, heavy equipment operator training in Kuujjuaraapik and this new Kuujjuaq-based program, the KSB now offered nine vocational programs.

Anowak says she’d recommend the course to anyone in the region who is looking for course that is almost guaranteed to find them work.

“We need more welders in Nunavik,” she said. “We need more Inuit to take these courses so we can work for ourselves.”

You can read more about the KSB’s vocation education program here.