A3: Allyship And Advocacy: Building a Community for Change - Karen Dearlove
Room: Richardson Conference Centre, Salon A/B

BCCWITT will share our successes, lessons learned and ongoing opportunities to build up our diverse tradespeople as advocates for social justice, and empowering male allies. We will share trainings and tools; outreach and partnerships; peer mentorship and regional mobilization; connections to broader opportunities and advocacy campaigns—that are effective in empowering our community to advocate for workplace, industry, and systemic changes. By highlighting best practices from our Trades Training and Employment, Leaders in Trades Training and Be More Than A Bystander programs, we will show how they empower our community as allies and advocates for inclusion in the trades.

A4: Moving the Needle!  College of the Rockies WIT Sampler Program - Joy Brown
Room: Harrow/Essex/Canterbury

The Women in Trades Sampler program delivered at College of the Rockies, in Cranbrook BC, is conservatively yet steadily 'moving the needle ' to increase the number of women in trades. In this session, I will share details on program organization and delivery, including the funding model, and industry supports, provide a description of the mentorship component and the newly added wellness workshops. This session may be of interest to participants who offer a Women in Trades Sampler program and for those who are interested in starting one.

A5: Digital Archive - Marcia Braundy 
Room: Cambridge

This open educational resource tool can assist those in governments, the private sector, unions, NGOs, education institutions and the public, to make informed decisions leading to more successful outcomes for women & other under-represented group members entering/working in skilled trades and technology occupations. It includes initiatives implemented in British Columbia and across Canada, with additional national/international interventions. These resources supply both lessons learned and successful outcomes. The Digital Archive will be housed at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, where it will be kept technologically up to date in their Digital Library.

Considering the current skills shortages in Canada and around the world, it is an essential component for preparing the workforce to enter these fields. It is in the public interest to create a tool which provides free public access to an historic record and knowledge base of efforts, initiatives and programs undertaken in Canada, and elsewhere, to support successful participation of women and other under-represented groups in apprenticeship & technical fields. Lloyd Axworthy told the first Women in Trades conference, in Winnipeg, that skill shortages were coming, and we needed to train women before we lost the skills of our older workers. Women responded. He can be proud. 

A6 Indigenous Medicine Wheel Teaching - Elder Charlene Gladu
Room: York

The Medicine wheel teaching is a gift that each of us have. The medicine wheel teaches us about health in our areas of Spirit, Emotion, physical and mental being, along with many other teachings within the sacred wheel. It provides us the knowledge of health wellness and balance. Learn how these teaching fit into our daily lives: balancing the quadrants of our being.