People who have faced barriers to employment are getting their lives on track through Island Crisis Care Society’s Project Rise.
The Nanaimo-based program is a resource for people who come from a broad range of employment barriers, such as addiction and homelessness or from mental and emotional challenges. Participants learn pre-employment skills and are introduced to dozens of potential employers in the region.
Project Rise has been in operation since 2021, and two of the most recent graduates stepped forward to speak about their experiences with the program and the circumstances in their lives that brought them there.
Chantelle Ruley is working to leave addiction behind for a fresh start in life.
Ruley, 35, was homeless for a brief time before coming into the Project Rise program in January.
She currently works at the Growing Opportunities Cline farm near Cathers Lake. The farm grows kale, strawberries, garlic, onions and blueberries and raises animals.
“Baby goats. Baby pigs. It’s a whole lot of fun out there,” she said. “Lately we’ve been digging up old harvests and putting new stuff in and we’ll be planting pretty quick here.”
Ruley has struggled with drug addiction, on and off, since she was 15. When she was evicted from where she was living, she lived on the streets for a short but frightening period before she found a bed at a sobering shelter and then a room in Samaritan Place, a shelter managed by Island Crisis Care Society, this past fall. A shelter manager suggested Ruley get involved in the Project Rise program.
“I didn’t really know what I was getting into,” she said. “I’d heard bits and pieces and I came in at the last minute.”
Ruley said she’s grateful for Samaritan Place, which extended her stay so she could graduate from Project Rise, and for its programs and social activities, such as bingo and dinner nights, for women staying there.
“It’s been great there. They made a little bit of an exception for me because I am actually trying and I’m not just in the bathroom smoking dope or whatever and they can see that,” she said.
Ruley said Project Rise is a come-as-you-are program that is tailored to the participant. Ruley opted to work on the farm after a construction job proved to be “a bit too much” and finding transit to the various job sites on different days proved difficult. The farm pays less, but she can handle the hours and the consistent commute. She said she especially loves being around the animals. The baby goats are her favourites.
“The program, it opens up a lot of doors. You’re fed every day. It’s been great,” Ruley said, becoming emotional. “I’m in a better spot than I was before because of this program.”
Program workshops educate participants about topics such as brain injury, First Nations culture, first aid, Serving it Right and Food Safe. Participants also learn through Work B.C. how to handle interviews with prospective employers and how to write cover letters for resumés. Bus passes and special equipment or clothing needed for jobs is provided.
She said she wants to have a place of her own, work, maybe have a car and “get back that feeling of independence again … something that I can come home to and know that I worked for that.” She’s applying for accommodation through B.C. Housing and is also scheduled for an addiction treatment program. She’s stayed off drugs, but admits it’s a struggle some days.
“It has its days. Like, I can’t say I’m completely clean, but I am on the list for treatment,” she said, “My main goal is to better myself and have my son back with me. He’s six, turning seven. He’s cool and he’s really smart.”
Another graduate, Jennifer Montgomery, 28, has found what she loves to do through the program.
A high-functioning person with autism who is additionally impacted by attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, she came to Project Rise in January to get her life moving forward.
“On my own I had been looking to get back into the workforce,” Montgomery said. “I was in a period of stagnation and looking to just figure something out and get my feet back under me.”
Her disability income provided just enough money to live on, but nothing extra at the end of each month. Her financial situation and not working brought on depression.
“I wanted to get better and I wanted to start doing things again,” she said. “My days were pretty empty and I would just sit around the house all day feeling terrible and I knew I wanted to get out of that, but I was struggling with the motivation and … not knowing what to do.”
Montgomery’s parents came from their home in the B.C. Interior to stay with her and help her find a way out of her slump, but even that induced feelings of guilt that she was a burden and a drain of resources on others.
“I know they’d do anything for me and they love me unconditionally, but I kind of wished I could stand on my own.”
Montgomery describes herself as someone who thrives on routine and needed something that would help her earn extra money and give meaning and structure to her life. She learned about Project Rise through an acquaintance she’d met in a youth social support group she’d aged out of.
“I thought, that sounds like me, people with barriers to employment,” she said. “I reached out and got in and that was what it took.”
Project Rise turned out to be different from other programs she’d tried before. Program coordinator Stephen Cochrane, she said, is better than the average person at dealing with people with autism, and the program could be shaped to accommodate Montgomery’s needs.
“You know the saying, ‘fitting a square peg into a round hole?’ I’m a bit of a square peg,” she said. “These programs that I’ve tried before were round holes for round pegs … but this program, rather than make me change myself, they were trying to work with how I am and I think. That’s why this worked so much better than anything else I’ve tried.”
Through the program, she wound up working for a bakery she’d actually worked at previously when it was under different ownership. The former owners were kind people and good to her, but she was in a customer-service position she wasn’t suited to.
Nanaimo Bakery and Café, purchased by Island Crisis Care Society’s subsidiary Rising Hope Services, employs Project Rise graduates. On one of the program’s cooking days, Montgomery made baked caramel apples that turned out great, and Cochrane brought one to show the bakery staff.
“The next thing I know I’m doing the interview at our job fair and then I’m working … and they’re saying, do you want to stay?” Montgomery said. “Yes. I’ve wanted this for a long time, actually.”
She started work at the end of February and says she loves it there.
“I do something I know and enjoy doing and the people there are so kind … just so accepting and understanding when I struggle with something or make a mistake or just need some sort of accommodation…” she said. “I’d like to stay there for as long as they’ll have me. I can’t see anywhere else I’d rather be.”
Cochrane said people come into the Project Rise program thinking it’s the same as other employability skills programs that don’t always meet their needs.
“I always [ask] them, is it a fit for them currently, in the time and the place where they’re at in their life right now?” Cochrane said. “It’s the old adage, right? They’ll get out of it what they put into it, but [Ruley and Montgomery], when they first started, they had no assurances to where they were going, what they were doing, had tried multiple different things and it just wasn’t fitting and just didn’t work. I just happened to come up with something that fit for them.”
Program participants do some general learning sessions together, but individualized plans are also created for them to “build their success and their capacity.”
Five of the seven people who started the program in January graduated. Cochrane said the program has a job placement success rate of more than 85 per cent and employers come back looking for more potential workers from Project Rise. New hires are often trained by previously hired graduates.
“I love that when I see that happening because when I see they’re teaching the next generation of cohorts that’s coming through, that’s when I know it’s working,” Cochrane said. “If it wasn’t, the work hosts wouldn’t be showing up for our little job fairs.”
READ ALSO: Nanaimo non-profit to purchase bakery, help people ‘rise’ above adversity
chris.bush@nanaimobulletin.com
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