Photo Courtesy the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta

By Tanner Smith

ASET

ASET helps fast-track refugees with tech experience into careers

Jun 3, 2022 | 6:00 AM

The Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta is making it easier for people who are refugees or newcomers to Canada to find work.

ASET’s first-of-its-kind program help fast-track newcomers and refugees with engineering technology education into new careers here in Alberta. It is also waiving all application fees for those with refugee status.

The Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta, CEO Barry Cavanaugh discussed the issues refugees have are not only around education, but people not having any financial support to jump-start their Canadian certification.

“But now we’ve had refugees arriving in Canada faster than ever before, we’ve always had Syrians and Afghans and refugees from all over the world but now they’re arriving quickly, and now finally it occurred to us there’s an obstacle in their a way, these fees and we can easily waive those.” Said Cavanaugh.

Cavanaugh added that waiving fees for refugees was overdue. The fees in question can cost up to $1,000 over time.

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“Waiving the fees will help Alberta in the long run, getting experienced individuals into our workforce,” Cavanaugh stated.

“There’s a positive objective here for people here in Alberta, we need these technologists, we need these skills and this knowledge, these folks will make a big contribution I think if they’re allowed to get into their field, you need to understand a lot of them to think of themselves as engineers because that’s what they are in their home countries.”

Cavanaugh added lots of these refugees often get turned down by other employers in the province, even though they have years of experience.

However, there is a current member of the ASET who fled Ukraine with her son in 2016, arriving in Alberta with ten years of engineering technology experience but still had to go to school at Lethbridge College.

Mila Wagner was unaware of ASET when she arrived in Alberta in 2016.

“I worked in an engineering technology-related profession using lots of the same tools and programs I do now, here as a civil engineer technologist here in Canada. After the first Russian invasion in 2014, I realized it would be so scary for me to raise my son in Ukraine.”

Wagner then went back to school at Lethbridge College to get her diploma in engineering technology and graduated in 2020.

She has now taken her ten years experience in Ukraine and two years in Canada and turned it into a prospering career and safe life for her and her son.

Wagner hopes her story will inspire other refugees to do the same, here in Alberta.

Mila Wagner and her family Photo Courtesy the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta

Barry Cavanaugh, ASET CEO Photo Courtesy the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta