Career options for Metis focus of conference

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A conference and career fair are being planned for this fall to deal specifically with issues affecting and opportunities available to Metis women and youth.

The Investing in Our Future: Improving the Economic, Social and Cultural Status of Metis Women and Youth conference will take place Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 at the Centre of the Arts in Regina. Leading up to the conference, a job and career fair are planned for Oct. 29.

Regina Metis Women are organizing the conference and career fair.

The career fair is being held to provide a much needed link between Metis participants and potential employers, explained Rhoda Fisher, who is working to coordinate both portions of the event.

"One of the things we got from the employers that we heard quite a bit from was that they didn't know how to find or tap into the Metis community. They seemed to be pretty good at tapping into the First Nations community, but they didn't have any way of tapping into the Metis community," she said.

"And one of the things that we heard from the Metis community was 'Where do we find these people? Where do we find the employers?' or 'Where do we find people that have services out there and what are those services?' So we thought it would be a great way to bring people together."

The career fair will also serve to link Metis people with education and training institutions, as well as providing them with information about funding available for business development.

The career fair will focus on non-traditional areas of employment, both for women, and for Aboriginal people.

"For example, nursing is not necessarily a non-traditional job for females. But it is for Aboriginal people," Fisher explained.

"We want people to also explore their career and job options. And we also want to help people that have a pretty good idea of what they want to get into, and have those types of employers and resources there so that they can move on with their career planning and their jobs," she said.

"And we're also looking for employers that are offering awards, bursaries, scholarships, those kinds of things to the Aboriginal community, so that Aboriginal people attending the conference can know what different awards that they have to offer and gather that information from them ... that's good to see, that people and employers are investing back into the community, and setting up awards and scholarships and bursaries. And so we want to make people more aware of them, and get more people applying to them. And so that fits in and helps them with their education, career or job planning."

The career fair will also be focusing on the employment "hot spots" identified last year by Human Resources Development Canada-health and medicine, construction, computers and communication, Fisher said.

"So we really want to push those areas and get people thinking about the careers in those areas."

The conference itself will pick up where the job fair leaves off, again focusing on career, training, education and entrepreneurial opportunities. The conference will focus on Metis culture and the importance of preserving it for future generations, and on leadership skills and community development. Time will also be devoted to discussion of racism, sexism, and poverty.

"It would be hard to talk about employment without talking about those issues. It would be hard to talk about education without those issues," Fisher said.

For more information about the Investing in Our Future conference and career fair, call Regina Metis Women at 352-8400.