Grow the Trades

This organization prepares women with a North Carolina state certified 8-week pre-apprenticeship training in skills and experience necessary to build successful, long-term careers in the construction industry. Participants learn construction math and tool handling, receive their OSHA 10 certification, and much more. Graduates connect with committed employer partners to obtain entry-level employment within the construction industry or move on to receive additional training through apprenticeships.

Offering high-caliber, no-cost design and construction education for teen girls and gender expansive youth, Girls Garage serves students who lack access to trade skill instruction due to financial, geographical, or personal barriers. After school and during the summer, girls learn architectural drafting, carpentry, welding, graphic design, and engineering through designing, prototyping, and construction skilling.

Using Home Builders Institute Pre-Apprenticeship Construction Training curriculum as a guide, members learn how to identify tools and material, how to operate tools safely and practice what they’ve learned making picnic tables, sheds, birdhouses and benches.

The program trains apprentices in HVAC, Plumbing, Welding, and Pipefitting to build, repair, and maintain our hospitals, schools, high rise buildings, and many more structures. The apprentices often start their own companies and hire new employees to keep our economy strong. The program also has a continuing education to earn an Associates or Bachelor’s degree.

The Centre for Women have offered the Women Building Futures Pre-Apprenticeship Program. A 16-week basic residential construction trades course, women learn more about available jobs and their projected path for advancement in focuses like carpentry, masonry, construction drawings and tools. Graduates of the program are prepared to enter a registered apprenticeship program or start working immediately.

Open For Business is a comprehensive program that provides entrepreneurial and fabrication training in welding, woodworking, foundry, basic machining, and OSHA 10 certification to low-income adults in the San Francisco Bay Area. Participants become qualified for entry- to mid-skill-level jobs in the skilled trades to earn a living wage. Simultaneously, participants gain entrepreneurial skills necessary to launch their own creative businesses, receiving their own set of personal protective equipment (PPE), materials, and a stipend to develop their products or as seed capital.