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Vancouver students are swapping textbooks for toolbelts with the help of a local construction association.

The Vancouver Regional Construction Association (VRCA) hosted a Bring Trades to Schools trade fair on Oct. 10 at a Home Depot in east Vancouver. Approximately 300 students from three Lower Mainland schools attended hands-on workshops in carpentry, masonry, electrical, mechanical, ironwork and heavy equipment simulation, a VRCA release said.

“The whole goal of what we’re trying to do with the VRCA is amplify the construction industry as a great career for youth. So they’re putting down the textbooks, picking up the tools and we’re trying to introduce them to careers in the trades and the industry overall,” VRCA director of advocacy and engagement Craig Larkins said.

He added both member organizations and others involved in the event saw it as “a great opportunity to create a pipeline for future workers.”

“When I was school I was introduced to shop class and welding. We don’t really have that in high schools anymore,” he said. “What we’re trying to do is bring that all back, get kids on the tools and tangible things they can build.

“One of the beautiful things about construction is that if you drive around downtown, you see what you’ve built, the structures and buildings.”

VRCA workforce development manager Eva Ciesielska noted the program began two years ago at a small scale with 16 Indigenous students in Burnaby, B.C., followed by 24 young women focusing on roles in the trades and the numbers grew from there.

For the Home Depot event 20 partners were invited with 10 involved in higher education and career training and 10 representing different construction fields, Ciesielska said.

“(This event) is different to most of our school events because kids usually have more time for exploration, but this is more brief and hands-on with them getting good exposure to a lot of different trades and career education,” she said.

Morgan Guerin is currently a councillor with the Musqueam Indian Band (MIB) and the Indigenous relations manager at Vancouver International Airport but said he began his career as a young man in the trades. He was the third person in Canada and first Indigenous person to obtain a Red Seal as a framing technician.

He addressed students at the event and in an interview with the Journal of Commerce said he sees strong potential for Indigenous youth looking to join the trades.

“This (event) empowers them, especially for trades that we were pushed out of in their grandparents time, and now we’re not only coming back but we’re coming with such a strong work ethic and then there’s also the building of Canada together,” he said.

He added youth employment in the trades recently came up at an MIB strategic directions meeting as a preferred career path.

“We’ve got people who are going in and becoming lawyers for seven years and drowning in student debt and still can’t find employment, as opposed to the trades where one of our councillors even said, ‘I just paid a guy $3,000 to put my gutters up and he’s got five more jobs,’” Guerin said.