A call was put out by the local visual itinerant teachers of students who are blind or have low vision in the NCR as they had a number of very bright individuals not considering post secondary education because they couldn’t imagine an employer hiring a blind person.
In response, the Association of Federal Public Servants with Visual Impairments (FPSVIP) Organised a job fair for high school students who are blind or have low Vision on April 18, 2019 to bring together high school students and link them with a variety of individuals who are blind or have low vision.
The format was a “speed mentoring” format, students had an opportunity to go from person to person every 10 minutes to ask Questions, talk about the work that person has done, their career and tips for the field they used to or currently work in. The goal was to showcase job opportunities and career paths taken by professionals with visual impairments of all types. We also have organised a number of future interactions with some of the students including mentoring, shadowing, organising vocational experiences and educational supports.
The key is to motivate and support students to pursue post secondary education and help identify, engage and support the students in the area who lack opportunities to benefit from the success and experience of others with visual impairements.
Careers Showcased:
- Jobs in The Sciences including a Senior Advisor
- Financial careers such as Accountants and a head of Economics within a department
- Policy and legislation including policy analysts and several senior managers and directors across the federal public service
- Math and Statistics including an employee doing statistical analysis at statscan
- Lawyer
- Real time translator
- Jobs in disability support, Digital Accessibility and adaptation such as Adaptive Technology Specialists, the manager of a service delivery program and several individuals in various employee support or accessibility testing roles
- And many more.
Education Showcased
- Bachelors of Commerce (major in Finance) and two professional designations: Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA); and Certified Cost Estimator
- College diploma in natural sciences
- Bachelors in linguistic arts
- Computer Science, 3 year diploma at Algonquin College and 2 year certificate at CDI Technical College
- Bachelor in Ecnomics, Universite de Montréal
- university degree in Mathematics and Statistics, as well as several university level courses in business administration.
- bachelor’s degree in Music therapy, a certificate in volunteer resource
- degree in Music therapy, a certificate in volunteer resource management and
- lots of continuing education in accessibility storytelling
- University degree in law
- Degree in Computer Engineering from Ottawa University
- BA in international development, Master of Arts in World Literatures and Cultures
- M.A. Economic Policy Management; M.A. Translation French-English; B.A. Economics; Post Graduate Diploma Demography & Development
- Certified project manager
We are already starting to plan next year’s event and there was a great deal of discussion that events like this should be organised across the country and also could be targeted to other groups of individuals with other types of disabilities.
This is interesting. Do you know if there were any blind artists at this event alongside other professionals? From what I have observed, creating or teaching art for a living isn’t as well known for many blind individuals–unless the person was an artist before he or she lost their sight.
There was an individual who is a professional storyteller? However; that was the only arts oriented field present.