CAREER & EDUCATION
From Issue #9
Real Life
Living
A Look at the Katimavik Program
By
Paul Royston
With more than 1,000 hours of community service and volunteer
work Katimavik is a dream to both build your résumé
and get the experience you need. You spend time in three provinces
for two and a half months each. While there, you work between
35-40 hours a week at a non-profit group, doing valuable and
necessary work for an organization that really needs it.
From database design to designing layouts for
the Arctic Winter Games venues to painting the walls of a recreation
centre, my jobs were varied and rewarding each in their own
way. I learned organization and communication skills, as well
as gaining experience working in a team environment. The experience
gave me the confidence I needed after the program to apply to
jobs that I would have been unqualified for the previous summer.
Each trimester you begin a new job. You are
interviewed by the community work partner and group Project
Leader for a position that can work well for you, with anywhere
from one to 11 different job possibilities. The jobs are dynamic;
you learn to be flexible and help others. You also establish
learning objectives for each trimester, based on your previous
experience and what you want to learn next. This isn’t
like school or work. You choose what you want to learn and in
what areas you want growth, and then you do it. You become responsible
for yourself and the other team members, as you take your share
of house duties such as cooking and cleaning. Katimavik helped
prepare me for living on my own and with roommates. From baking
bread to planning the meals for a week and buying the food,
Katimavik gets you ready for life.
Some of the many skills you’ll acquire
through Katimavik include planning your group’s time for
seven months and learning to reach consensus on decisions involving
everyone in the group. By spending seven months in such a positive
and intensive atmosphere, your intuitive and learned skills
blossom. Katimavik has a leadership component, which focuses
on employability skills recognized by the Conference Board of
Canada, from teamwork to conflict resolution and work ethics
to communication skills.
Katimavik allows you an opportunity to go to
a place where there are no preconceived notions about you, where
you can experience new opportunities in an environment different
from your home community. It is a chance to stretch yourself
outside of your old boundaries and step into new territory with
a team of people who support you because you are being yourself.
This happened to my group and myself. Dare yourself, accept
this challenge, a chance to escape the ordinary, to explore
new paths in your life and to do something that will enhance
your life.
Paul
Royston is a 1999-2000 Katimavik participant and worked as a
Katimavik Project Leader in Houston, British Columbia during
the 2001-2002 program. He currently lives in Kitchener, Ontario.
For
more information visit www.katimavik.org
