'Jill of All Trades' event at Fanshawe encourages young women to pursue careers in skilled trades

Fanshawe College in London has joined a movement to attract young women to the traditionally male dominated skilled trades, and tackle a growing labour shortage at the same time.

The school hosted its first ever ‘Jill of All Trades’ event, introducing high school aged young women to skilled trades, including carpentry, automotive, electrical, and plumbing.

“I love working with my hands, I love being creative, I love building. It’s just, I love every aspect of it,” said Paige Vancleeff, a grade 12 student at John Paul II Catholic Secondary School in London. She was one of about 90 young women from high schools across the region to take part in the event.

The goal is to get young women interested in pursuing careers in jobs in which there are still gender-based barriers, said Stephen Patterson, Fanshawe College’s dean of the Faculty of Science, Trades, and Technology.

Female high school students take part in an electrical workshop at the ‘Jill of All Trades’ event at Fanshawe College in London, Ont. on Oct. 5, 2023. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV News London) “Well there’s so many barriers that you’d probably realize, but the strongest one is self-efficacy and the belief that they can do this. And of course they can, as well as anyone,” he said.

Fanshawe College post-grad student Paige Askew is one of the event’s instructors. She said she advises students to practice perseverance -- even when they fail the first time at something.

“The trades are a lot like sports,” she explained. “You mess up- work on doing better. You’re going to mess up every day. They key is making it a puzzle and having fun with the mess up.”

According to Patterson, there are 63,000 skilled trades positions open in Ontario right now. He added that doesn’t count the upcoming retirements that are going to create even more positions.

“Well if you can imagine trying to solve a labour shortage in the trades by only having half of the population with only 10 per cent engaged. That’s the case for females in Ontario. So if you can imagine, if we can incent these young women to know their potential we’re going to solve a lot of problems and a lot of shortages in our regions, and that’s super important,” he said.

As for the aspiring carpenter, Paige Vancleeff, she said her next stop is college, then an apprenticeship to get the training she needs to build the homes of the future.

“My first activity of the day is carpentry, and that’s what I plan to do with the rest of my life, so I’m very excited for that,” she said.