Employment & Training Opportunities for Local Residents

Great Beginnings Program projects that support hiring, training and providing of meaningful skills-building opportunities target a range of employee groups within the community including individuals who suffer from mental health and addictions, new female immigrants, and the local homeless / under-housed population.

Each employment or skills-building opportunity is managed separately and targets members of various sub-groups within the neighbourhood. The unique experiences individuals employed through the Great Beginnings Program experience require some positions to be extremely easy to access, or low-threshold. Some employees may have the ability to work one or two hours per week on a casual basis, while others may be able to successfully be employed through one initiative on a long-term and full-time basis. 

The Great Beginnings Program staff team works to ensure the long-term sustainability of supported projects and initiatives. The Clean Streets Project, for example, which employs individuals affiliated with Coast Mental Health Foundation and United We Can, has been in operation since 2008 and will continue to the end of 2011. Street micro-cleaners can be employed during the entire period.

In some cases, Great Beginnings Program support has contributed to the piloting and business plan development of successful long-term businesses offering full-time employment such as the Mission Possible Graffiti Removal project and the Sew a Legacy: Olympic / Paralympic Banner - Sports Bag Production Project.

Where projects are not long-term, employees and volunteers receive valuable training, skills-acquisition and business acumen. The investment in skills, confidence and opportunity is a long-term positive by-product of the Great Beginnings Program that individuals can use to obtain future employment.

Great Beginnings Program employment and skills-building opportunities include:

• Hiring and training of local artists for arts, culture and festival projects including: Princess Avenue Interpretive Walk, After Homelessness, and The Heart of the City Festivals.
• Volunteer opportunities for local homeless and under-housed individuals through projects such as the First United Church Short-Term Cart and Belongings Facility and the annual HomeGround event.
• Honorariums and skills training provided to members of community service organisations such as VANDU for participation in the Toilet Monitoring and DTES Pedestrian Safety projects.
• Sewing employment for women including recent immigrants and refugees, single mothers who cannot obtain typical full- or part-time employment, local Aboriginal women, local Afghani women, and women who suffer from mental or physical disabilities.
• Low-threshold street micro-cleaning employment for members of Coast Mental Health Foundation and United We Can –- not-for-profits that accommodate individuals with mental health and addictions and those in need of low-threshold employment opportunities.
• Graffiti removal and neighbourhood clean up work opportunities  for members of local faith-based not-for-profits (Mission Possible).
• Providing opportunities to participate in writing workshops with Megaphone Magazine. Workshop participant’s work is commissioned and published in local publications.
• Commissioned the totem carving talents of local aboriginal artists for the Blood Alley Greening and Oppenheimer House Post projects. 

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