May 1, 2024 (Duncan, BC) – Cowichan Bay’s Ducharme recently graduated from the Construction Foundation of BC’s (CFBC) Sky Keepers program, a three-week Indigenous led initiative hosted by Hiiye’yu Lelum Society (House of Friendship) in Duncan. Sky Keepers provides graduates with several skill sets and certifications.
The 42-year-old, Métis entrepreneur embraced the opportunity to gain insight into his Indigenous background through Sky Keepers. From a technical standpoint, the program’s drone training component has inspired him to begin the process of adding a drone flying service to his personal business.
“It’s opened my eyes to cultural awareness,” said Ducharme. “It has helped me to feel more connected to my background and to learn more about the local culture here as well. I was feeling a little bit lost in life about what to do career-wise. This three-week program opened up my mind to different opportunities.”
An interview with staff at the House of Friendship “immediately welcomed” Ducharme to the Sky Keepers family. Shortly thereafter, he was accepted into the program alongside 20 other applicants from the Cowichan area.
“There was 20 of us sitting in the classroom for the first week,” added Ducharme. “I got to meet everybody. It was really nice to meet local people in the Indigenous community.”
Although the amount of reading material in the initial week challenged Ducharme, he persevered and completed the required readings before shifting into Microsoft Office-based training (Word, PowerPoint and Excel) for the program’s second week. The second week also provided Ducharme with individualized instruction on how to incorporate his passion for photography and video editing into his overall learnings.
“It was quite amazing to have one-on-one support and of course the group support as well,” explained Ducharme. “Hearing the questions from the other participants was really helpful. Knowing that a lot of us had similar questions and similar curiosities.
“What I was most fascinated by in the first week was learning how many different opportunities and fields that drones have a part in our world. It was a bit mind boggling to just think that everything we do could actually involve drones.”
Thanks to the Sky Keepers program, Ducharme’s future career prospects now include search and rescue, limousine and real estate services, as well as potential government and Indigenous group contracts.
“Already, the opportunities are just flowing in which is really, really cool,” he concluded.
Sky Keepers is made possible through the support of DIGITAL, Canada’s Global Innovation Cluster for digital technologies, and funded in part by the Government of Canada’s Skills for Success Program.
For more information on the work being done by the Construction Foundation of BC and to donate, please visit www.constructionfoundation.ca.
ABOUT DIGITAL
DIGITAL, Canada’s Global Innovation cluster for digital technologies, grows Canadian businesses through the development, adoption and deployment of Canadian-made technologies and by working with industry to develop a digitally skilled workforce to positively impact lives across our country. We bring together businesses, academia, community and government agencies to solve some of industry and society’s biggest challenges – better and faster than any single organization can do on its own. Through a powerful model that combines cross-sector collaboration, Canadian IP creation and results-based co-investment, we unlock the potential of Canadian industry to lead and succeed in the digital world.
Ahead of the curve starts here.
For more information, visit: https://www.digitalsupercluster.ca.