Newcomer to Canada Hermon
Gidey, 12, wants to be a
pediatrician.
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It takes just minutes for Career Trek Business Instructor JoAnn Wright to transform a Red River College classroom into a hectic stock exchange floor. The students here - 10 and 11-year-olds enrolled in the Phase 1 Program - take on the role of stockbroker as JoAnn hurls commodity exchange curve balls their way.
In this fictional stock market, rumour has it CanWest is merging with an Australian movie company. And Coca-Cola is announcing that Scooby Doo is their new spokesman. How will these developments affect what the budding brokers buy, sell or trade? They have to think fast and spend their $1,000 in fake money wisely before the bell rings, signaling the market close.
“It's nerve wracking,” 12-year-old Hermon Gidey says with a smile. “It could crash or go higher.”
It's her first real taste of the stock market. “I wasn't interested - until now,” she says. “It's really fun to think what would happen if it was real.”
“It makes you feel smarter.” – Participant
By the end of the school year, roughly 240 young participants will have received hands-on experience in 80 careers spanning 17 different fields - from Journalism to Geology. This vocational voyage takes them across three campuses: University of Manitoba, University of Winnipeg and Red River College.
Hermon - who moved to Winnipeg in 2006 from Eritrea, Africa - may have been bitten by the investment bug, but she's also interested in Medicine. She plans on becoming a pediatrician so she can help young patients and lend support to her extended family who still live in Africa.
For now, she's off to her Carpentry class, trading in her stockbroker's cap for a hammer and nails. Hermon and her fellow Trekkers will learn how to build a birdhouse for clients Mr. and Mrs. Chickadee. Their immediate task? Insert a dowel into the holes of a wooden box, which doesn't appear to fit. Instructor Mike Lewis explains why wood swells and shows them how to use a nail set to fix the problem.
"This program should continue to the end of time." – Participant, Fort Rouge School
Mike raves about Career Trek but he has one major beef with the program - it should have been around when he was a school-aged kid.
“It's fantastic, awesome. I wish it was there for me,” Mike says moments before encouraging his junior apprentices to “Choose your own destiny. Do whatever makes you the happiest person possible.”
It's more of a rally than a ceremony.Family, friends and instructors stand, cheer, whoop and holler, as dozens of Phase 1 Program graduates in gowns make their big entrance behind a bagpipe player. The energized room pops with camera flashes almost as bright as the smiles on the faces of the 10 and 11-year-olds being celebrated.
"Congratulations graduates. It's your day," says Career Trek Founder Darrell Cole, who also commends the kids for giving up their Saturdays to come to class.
Melissa Reynolds, Director of Programming, then offers a "sincere, ginormous congratulations."
The laid-back vibe continues as instructors introduce themselves in creative ways - some with a tongue-in-cheek rap, others with a new take on Harry Belafonte's Day-O (Banana Boat Song): "Career Trek is done and I don't wan' go ho-ome." The staff exchange high-fives with the grads before handing out faculty-themed awards like the Geology Rock Star and the Mad Scientist.
One graduate pumps her fists in the air before accepting the Career Trekker of the Year award for showing the most enthusiasm. Another is equally psyched upon learning he earned the" I Will Succeed Award," netting him $1,000 towards his future education.
The Phase 1 Program is funded by:
