A Gimli High School student who took part in the province’s annual Take Our Kids to Work Day last week got to experience a number of different jobs.
Oliver Gudbjartson, who’s in Grade 9, put in a full day’s work at the New Iceland Heritage Museum and had an opportunity to shadow maintenance staff with the Betel Heritage Foundation.
Gudbjartson already knows what career he wants to pursue when he graduates from high school, but the experience gave him more insight into his chosen field.
“I really liked helping with the maintenance of the building today, going into the crawlspace and seeing the inner workings of the mechanical system,” said Gudbjartson, who works at a Gimli pharmacy when not in school. “In Grade 11 and 12, I’m planning on doing an apprenticeship for electrical.”
The provincial government offers a high school apprenticeship program which allows students in grades 10-12 to learn a trade and acquire working experience while completing their schooling. They also earn credits that can be used towards continued apprenticeship training after they graduate.
Gudbjartson said he has his sights set on entering the trades with a community college such as Red River.
In the museum itself, he said he got to work under executive director Julianna Roberts, who is his great aunt. He got plenty of hands-on experience working in the gift shop where he folded T-shirts then carried out other tasks such as changing the furnace’s filter, emptying the vending machine’s coin box and shovelling snow.
Roberts said the museum benefited from having Gudbjartson on staff for the day.
“Oliver is very willing to do different jobs. We had a list of jobs for him to do and he’s been a great help,” said Roberts. “The Take Our Kid to Work program is so important because it gives kids introductions to different careers that they might not think of. I often think back to when I discovered that it was possible to work as a recreation director, a job I never knew existed. This program helps kids realize that you don’t only have to be a teacher or a nurse; there are all sorts of careers out there.”
Thousands of Manitoba Grade 9 students got to join their parents, caregivers or family members in their workplaces to find out what their jobs entail and give them some idea of what it’s like to work in a particular field. The program began in 1994 and has had over 200,000 Manitoba students participating, according to a Nov. 1 provincial news release.
“Take Our Kids to Work Day is a great opportunity for Grade 9 students in Manitoba to get first-hand experience in the working world,” said provincial education and early childhood learning minister Nello Altomare. “For many young people, it is their first experience participating in the workforce. The hands-on experiences are so helpful as students begin planning their future careers.”
