Today, October 17th, is the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. It has been observed on this day every year since 1987, to acknowledge the effort and struggle of people living in poverty across the globe. Poverty has many dimensions and looks different for all Canadians, but its causes include unemployment, social exclusion, and any situation or phenomena which prevents individuals from being productive. This year’s theme calls for universal access to decent work, which is why NPower Canada is taking this opportunity to reaffirm our commitment to supporting all individuals who face systemic barriers to sustainable employment.
Since 2014, NPower Canada has enrolled over 7,000 job-seekers from across Canada into their workforce development program, which provides underserved youth and adults with digital skills training, professional development, job search support, and access to wraparound supports to help job-seekers in all aspects of their lives and careers.
“NPower Canada supports underserved job-seekers with opportunities to upskill and gain meaningful employment, and at the same time, we help employers find skilled talent to combat the digital skills gap in Canada,” said Julia Blackburn, Chief Executive Officer, NPower Canada. “We believe that everyone deserves fair and equitable opportunities to thrive and contribute to their communities, and access to employment is key in making that happen.”
In providing ambitious yet underserved job-seekers with free, in-demand digital skills and professional development training, NPower Canada is connecting vulnerable populations in six provinces across the country to meaningful and sustainable employment. In many cases, NPower Canada graduates are doubling their annual household incomes after completing the program and gaining employment. Eighty percent of program graduates are placed in employment within 6 months of program completion.
In the almost 10 years since the inception of NPower Canada, staff have regularly witnessed the challenges and injustices that marginalized people face in our society. They have also seen the resilience, potential, and success of individuals who are given the opportunity to overcome these barriers and transform their lives, like NPower Canada graduates Dustin Woods Turner and Joshua Moore.
“Being queer, neurodiverse, isolated, unemployed, homeless, and with no family during the pandemic was a scary experience for me. I was searching for somewhere I could go to learn in a safe and supportive environment, and after being recommended to NPower Canada by three different sources, I knew I had to give them a shot, and I’m so happy I did,” says Dustin Woods Turner, 2022 NPower Canada graduate of the Junior Security and Quality Assurance program.
“I unfortunately left home at a young age, at 17, and spent a year with unstable housing and homelessness… There is a lot of stigma around being a homeless youth and dropping out of high school that makes a lot of conventional routes of education and career difficult. Without any sort of proper guidance or figures to follow, it was hard to navigate my way around, and that’s where NPower Canada came in and helped me to develop my career,” says Joshua Moore, 2017 NPower Canada graduate of the Junior IT Analyst program.
On International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, NPower Canada recognizes the plights of so many Canadians in situations of homelessness, unemployment and other dimensions of poverty and we reaffirm our commitment to helping create pathways to economic prosperity for Canada’s underserved communities, by way of a diverse technology workforce, where people from any cultural ethnicity, gender or socio-economic background can succeed in Canada’s digital economy.
To learn more, visit https://npowercanada.ca/apply
For further information: Emilie Jones, Manager of Communications & Engagement, NPower Canada, [email protected], 647-689-5850 ext 230
