“I was bullied for being smart when I was a kid and people took the mickey and I hid it. And I tried not to come across as clever. And if I had anything to tell 14-year-old me, I wish I could slap her in the face honestly, and go, stop it! Stop being shy. Don’t be ashamed of being smart because it’s your greatest asset.”
Freyja Ingham is Asset Care Team Manager at Morson Projects. Without much encouragement from her teachers to consider pursuing a career in STEM, Freyja spent much of her early teenage life working in a local café, unsure of what to do. PathFinders speaks to her about her journey into engineering:
Talk to us about your early life and career
I started work when I was 13 in a local café, and I sort of stayed put there and while I was doing my GCSE’s and my A-levels. I was working part time the whole time and I just, I didn’t really know what to do with my life.
I was waiting on tables, pot wash and then I moved up to working in the ice cream parlour. I got my own till and I got to till up at the end of the day. And I love tilling up because I like to know that my till was right. And then I did front of house, and I really loved talking to people.
I liked to be able to have a good chat with customers. And then I went on to wait on in like an actual restaurant side and I worked behind the bar there as well.
When did you consider the possibility of a career in STEM?
I did STEM at GCSE kind of age and you know we went to the Big Bang Fair in Manchester and it was it was really good fun.But I guess I never kind of considered it as a career path because my teachers never really pushed that and they were like, “oh go to uni”
There was six of us. And there was three girls and three boys. So it wasn’t particularly biased to one gender or anything. I’ve always enjoyed like my maths and my physics and mathematical kind of subjects. I like the challenge of it. I like the fact there’s a right and wrong answer as well. The teachers pushed university and not so much vocational. I love that vocational kind of, you’re doing your job, learning on the job type of thing.
So I was, I was carrying on waitressing and I wasn’t into that sort of full time. I had spinal surgery and I spent a year recovering from that. And it was while I was off kind of deciding what do I do with my life that I thought I should probably consider, maybe engineering because there was a lot of it locally on my doorstep. I live right between BAE Systems and Sellafield. So it kind of is there in your face.
Talk to us about your early steps in engineering
I applied for a few positions, and I was really lucky to get offered a job with Morson and a complete traineeship. I had no kind of background experience and they said that they’d train me up in the roles and take me around all the departments and see where I fit best and what I enjoyed the most.
I shadowed all the engineers I was working with. I shadowed them and while I was doing my HNC that Morson were funding for me. I went round and I learned all about like how computerised maintenance systems, we went through reliability-centred maintenance and spares and obsolescence.
I went through technical documentation and then I came to the asset care department and I never left and I love it.
Do you have a career hero?
I wouldn’t say I have one particular. I think it’s a lot of the people that I’ve met along the way and they’ve all supported me in different kind of aspects. A lot of what I know is what people have shown me and taught me along the way. Whether that’s like just being how to be perceived in the office and the way that you speak to people and handle relations and stuff, and then the pure engineering knowledge that some people have shared with me.
But I think honestly, I genuinely would say it, it’s the people that I’ve been able to work with along the way that are like my kind of heroes, my inspiration, because I just want to be as good as they are to me.
How do you find working with Morson Projects?
Probably about seven of the eight and a half years I’ve worked for Morson I’ve been on asset care now and I absolutely love it. I’ve just become asset care team manager. I love the work I like the variation of being able to spend some of your week in the office and others is on site, on plant and it’s really gratifying when you go out and you see something that you looked at three years ago, you actually see that they’ve done something based on your recommendations and your findings and know it is valued input and that you do find things that they missed.
How would you like to change the industry for the better?
I’m excited to fly the flag for more women, which is always really cliché, but there’s not that many. I think there’s three of us in our office, four, small numbers. So, I’d like to fly the flag for women and I’d like to say I enjoy seeing the actual value of my work and seeing things be implemented that I spotted. And I’ve seen a make a difference. I work on the Sellafield site and being part of the story of that being decommissioned and making a difference to that, given the fact it’s on my doorstep as well, it’s really it’s really nice to see that. And I’d like to make a difference to that whole story. However small. It’s a difference. And I’d also really like to give back the same level of care that people showed to me when I was new and I was training, and I’d be that person for them because it was a massive thing to me when they did that for me to be that person
What would you tell your 14-year-old self if you could?
I had anything to tell, like a 14-year-old me it would be, I wish I could slap in the face honestly and go, stop it, stop being bloody shy!
I was bullied for being smart when I was a kid and people took the mickey and I hid it and I tried not to come across as clever. Don’t be ashamed of being smart because it’s your greatest asset. Why are you ashamed of it? Because I’m not me.
I know I’m so competitive when it comes like college or degree or anything. I’m like, I want top marks, I want to beat everyone and I’m starting my HNC and because I hadn’t done the bridging course and one of the tutors on the first day I started this turned around and said you’re going to fail because I’ve not seen you you’ve not done the bridging course and you’ve not done the ONC. I had like you know I’ve the UCAS points to get onto the course and I was like I’m going to prove you wrong.
And I got a distinction in every single one of his lessons and I was like, it was kind of like my own little way of going… Hah. Told you!
Chloe Hughes is an aviation Stress Engineer at Morson Projects. Having a long-standing enthusiasm for aviation nurtured by a love of sci-fi, Chloe has trodden an unconventional path to lead her to working in aerospace. For PathFinders, we spoke to her about her journey and the lessons she’s learned along the way.Watch her story here
David Richardson is Senior Manager for Maintenance Services at Chartright Air Group, based in Ontario, Canada.
British-born David was captivated by aviation engineering from a young age. His passion took him first to a career in the Royal Air Force, then into contracting, before making another big leap to live on the other side of the world with his young family.
For PathFinders, we spoke to David about his passion for aviation, his life in engineering and his advice for veterans looking to make the transition from a forces career into a civilian career.
When you were in school, what did you see your career as? What were your aspirations?
I did OK through school, and I developed an interest in aviation and a desire to join the industry through going to air shows. I had a bit of a challenging upbringing, so I wanted to leave home quickly, and going into aviation was the way I wanted to go. There was no deviating from that from an early school age.
It was on the engineering side, how it works, how an aircraft gets off the ground that fascinated me. I just wanted to know more about that. Every time I saw an aeroplane take off, I would stop and watch, a little bit confused to be honest. How did that big heavy thing get off the ground?
The love of aircraft took me into applying to join the Royal Air Force. The ability to train and be paid at the same time with some travel did appeal to me. I started that process when I was around 16. I went through the interviews, and eventually I joined the RAF a month and a half after my 17th birthday.
How long did you spend in the RAF and what was your route through there like?
I spent 13 years with the RAF, went through my initial basic training, the soldier training for the first six weeks, then went off to Halton and did my technical trade training for several months. I was then posted out to RAF Coningsby in Lincolnshire around 1991. I was looking after Tornados, working on maintenance, both squadron and hanger work until 1997 when I was lucky enough to get a posting out Sardinia. I did a lot of cool things out there, looking after incoming aircraft like Hercules, VC10s and anything else that dropped in, like the Red Arrows. I spent a year there until the base closed.
Shortly before I was due to leave, I managed to get on a fitter’s course which was further training. Then I was posted off to RAF Cosford to do some more technical training, which came with a promotion. I spent a year there completing the training and I got a lucky posting to RAF St Morgan, just outside Newquay with the Sea Kings, initially going down there looking after maintenance in the hangers.
Then I moved into a role carrying out composite repairs and static and dynamic balance of the blades. And that’s where I stayed until 2003, when I left the RAF.
What are the challenges associated with leaving the armed forces and what advice would you give to somebody about to take that step?
It’s a daunting process. You’ve spent your career being babysat, for want of a better phrase, in my case from just 17 years old.
They give you the food, they tell you what to do, when to do it and they train you with the things that you need. Leaving that and going into Civvy St is difficult, it’s daunting. You start looking at some resettlement courses that the military offer you before you leave and you start scratching your head and thinking, where do I want to go? For me, not too difficult. I wanted to stay with aircraft and aircraft maintenance. In what direction I wanted it to go, I wasn’t sure. But you do get a period of resettlement time. So, for me that’s when I jumped into the contracted world. It gives you an introduction to Civvy Street while still having the protection of being in the military. There were about four months where I was kind of dipping between the military and contract work. But it is challenging. It’s a bit of a wake-up call, but the support is there.
I was fortunate because I was going out with a trade that was recognised outside the military, whereas for some of the other guys in other trades it might not be so easy. It’s more military-based trades versus Civvy Street so I came out with pieces of paper that that were instantly recognised by civilian employees.
As well as transitioning from the armed forces to a civilian career, you also made a step to move to a different country, moving to Canada. Talk to us about that journey, and the challenges you faced.
It’s always been kind of knee-jerk with my wife and I, we’ll look at something and we’ll react quickly. When I was working in the contract world, I got approached by a company manufacturing parts for the Airbus A380 and got offered a permanent role in Canada, with support and assistance in getting out there.
At that time, we did have a little girl. She was less than a year old and we were expecting our second child, so it was a bit daunting, to say the least – pregnant wife and a baby in arms and moving halfway across the world. I don’t know how we did it but we did!
The company, SNP Aerospace in Novia Scotia, came to Bristol to do some interviews. I interviewed there and got offered a job on the spot. Four months later, we were ready to leave.
They paid for the move and there was support there to get us across. These people tell you where to set up a bank account, or for your vehicle insurance, go to these people. They assist you to get the fundamentals in place.
We were ready to go. It was myself, my wife and my little girl, sat there all packed up. All our worldly belongings had already moved on a truck. We were ready to fly out the following morning to Nova Scotia and my dad came in and said “you’re not flying with a company called Zoom, are you?” I was. “Well, they just went bankrupt, and all the aircraft are grounded…” We had our money moving and our belongings were moving. We had a hotel, but we had rental cars booked. But the company that we were flying with just went bust and we didn’t have a flight out there the following day.
We had to scramble to get something else in place, but we’d already cancelled our UK credit cards with the intent to get Canadian ones once we got there. It was a challenge, but we managed to get there, via a couple of stops in the United States.
We landed into Halifax not knowing anybody or anything, we’d never set foot in Canada before! When we arrived, we spent the night there. We started to transition into life in Canada the next morning.
I was a production manager at that point. In that role, I looked after military contracts primarily. We were taking the wings off Aurora aircraft, so the four engines come off, the wings come off, the fin comes off, the vertical stabilisers come off and are all replaced with brand new items.
Following a spell with Air Canada, you’ve moved on to working in the private aviation field with Chartright. What is your role there?
We’re the biggest private jet business aircraft Charter company in Canada. And we have 53 aircraft on our books. Most are privately owned, and we have care, custody and control of those aircraft. The owners fly them, and when they’re not flying, they’re open to us to charter out on their behalf.
My position here at the moment is senior manager in maintenance services. I manage the base as far as maintenance goes, along with the bases we have in Florida, Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Ottawa and anywhere in between where we put aircraft. So now I spend a lot of time talking to very rich owners and explaining why they need to spend half a million dollars on their aeroplane!
Chloe Hughes is an aviation Stress Engineer at Morson Projects. Having a long-standing enthusiasm for aviation nurtured by a love of sci-fi, Chloe has trodden an unconventional path to lead her to working in aerospace. For PathFinders, we spoke to her about her journey and the lessons she’s learned along the way.Watch her story here
Search our latest roles and aviation engineering and more in Canada by clicking here
Boxer Anthony Crolla is a Manchester legend. Billed as the city’s answer to the Rocky story, the label was hard-earned for the young boxer, who made his professional debut back in 2006 on the undercard of Joe Calzaghe v Sakio Bika at the Manchester Arena, a venue that the Mancunian prospect would thrive in a further 13 times throughout his career. A couple of early career losses were then overcome on the journey to winning the British lightweight title in 2011.
But before he had the shot at claiming a world title, Anthony Crolla would have to face an almost career-ending setback. In late 2014, he was the victim of a vicious attack while defending his neighbours’ property from burglars, and ended up in hospital having been hit across the head with a concrete slab.
Within 12 months, he’d drawn against and then beaten Darleys Perez and claimed the WBA lightweight title, going to provide legendary nights for his dedicated fanbase.
Now retired and working to train the next generation of fighters, including his brother Will, Crolla speaks openly to PathFinders about his incredible career, both in and out of the ring, and what his hopes are for the future.
Did you yourself believe that you were going to become world champion even very early in your career?
Yeah, I did. Don’t get me wrong, if I would have been saying at some points in my career, I’d have probably got locked up saying I’m going to be a world champion when I’d lost early on in my career a few times. But I always knew what I was capable of and it’s just about sort of getting it right on the night and maturing and that a little bit of luck .
Hard work is what gets you there a lot of the times. And talent as well, a mixture of things. But a lot of the times you need that little bit of luck. There’s been some unbelievable boxers, unbelievable fighters who’ve not managed to get to where they wanted to, not got the break for one reason over and over. Thankfully, I did get my break.
I feel like I never stopped sort of believing that I could get to that level deep down, you know, like I said, even when I was sharing a bunk bed with my brother after fights! I was bluffing the Million Dolla nickname for so long!
Anthony Crolla finally achieved his dream of a world title in the second fight with Darleys Perez, after overcoming a horrific injury. He describes his journey:
“It happened in the December; I was meant to fight in January. I chased some burglars who were in my neighbour’s house a few streets away and then copped for a concrete slab on my head on the blind side and ended up seriously injured in hospital.
Talking about dark moments, that was definitely up there. I believed after that night that it had all been taken away from me. I was just praying doing all the rehab, hoping that one day I’d get cleared to box again.
But obviously on the first day, with the injuries I did think, no chance. I was down and I was thinking, I have a young family. I just moved into my first house with girlfriend and my little boy and it was a pride thing. Thinking I’ve got to provide for them. And the only way I know how to provide is to box and, and I think it might’ve been taken away from me.
So, I was it was the pride. Imagine I have to send them back to live at her mum and dads, because I can’t afford to look after them. Hopefully I would have been successful at something else. It was a horrible, worrying time.
Thankfully it then I got a second chance and that’s what that second chance and that was part of the courage building. I was always dedicated, but I knew I had to get it absolutely everything to make sure I fulfilled, you know, what I wanted to do.
You live, you learn, and everything happens for a reason, don’t it? It very nearly cost me my career, and it could have cost me more, but thankfully it didn’t.”
From the C-suite to trades roles the Armed Forces community offers a wealth of hard and soft skills sought after by organisations. In a labour market where 80% of UK businesses report difficulties in filling vacancies, businesses that fail to take advantage of this talent pool stand to miss out on the opportunity hidden within this community.
We find employers are not ignorant of the benefits of recruiting ex-forces, a population which increases by over 16,000 people each year. Over the past 5 years, we’ve seen organisations increasingly focus on ex-military talent acquisition, but often they lack the network or expertise to reach, engage and retain this group of workers.
Morson Forces are the Morson Group’s dedicated recruitment arm which has been laser-focused on securing skilled employment for ex-forces personnel for the past 20 years.
Armed Forces Day takes place on the last Saturday of June each year and is a great opportunity to celebrate the community. Our team supports individuals and their partners to transition from ex-forces to civilian life whilst opening doors to the potential of the service leaver community for businesses. Proud holders of the Ministry of Defence Gold Award in the Employer Recognition Scheme since 2017, we have more than 2,500 ex-Royal Navy, Army and RAF individuals working across projects in the UK and overseas.
Almost 13% of our candidate pool is designated as ex-forces.
So why do we invest so significantly in the ex-forces community and what makes this largely untapped talent pool key to helping our clients solve their talent challenges across multiple sectors?
“In the military, if you turn up on time, you’re actually 10 minutes late.” What skills do the ex-forces community offer?
Ex-forces personnel often possess skills that can set them apart from their peers. Soft skills such as organisation, timekeeping and discipline are hard-coded by military experience and culture. In addition, almost all have NVQ or degree accreditations and often have practical experience in subjects like engineering, easily transferrable for similar civilian roles.
We all know that ‘you don’t have to be a pilot to fly in the RAF’, but it goes much further as Jon Moon, veteran, Contracts Manager and Morson Forces team member explains:
“The Royal Navy doesn’t just sail ships, the Army doesn’t just fire weapons and the RAF doesn’t just fly planes. They can be surgeons, dentists, cartographers, HR and payroll experts, logisticians, drivers, vehicle mechanics, aircraft engineers, analysts, security, IT, cyberspace communications, radar, telecoms, chefs, aircrew, firefighters, the list goes on…
Leadership, working in safety-critical environments, following instructions (verbal and written) in addition to multi-skilled, professional accreditation and qualifications mean that many forces individuals are extremely attractive candidates. Punctual, with a strong work ethic they can turn their hands to any task.“
JON MOON, MORSON FORCES
Most candidates have a minimum of an NVQ level 3 trade qualifications and many with additional professional and personal trade associated with MSc. BSc, MBA and Charter Status.
Many service leavers also come with learning credits which can be used to a future employer’s benefit. The schemes entitle eligible personnel to receive financial assistance towards their learning, promoting life-long development that enables higher level learning of a nationally recognised qualification at Level 3 or above with an approved provider. Information for serving personnel who are looking to claim this can be found here.
With job-ready service people exiting the military each year alongside those aware they will leave within the next 1-3 years, organisations can easily align veteran engagement with their short, medium and long-term talent acquisition strategies.
Barriers that hinder recruiting ex-forces often appear at the first stages of the recruitment process...
Many armed forces have limited knowledge of the working world outside the military bubble. Some ex-services personnel won’t have written a CV or experienced an interview since they joined the armed forces at the age of 16. And challenges such as translating some of the transferable skills they’ve learnt in the armed forces into something that would appeal to an employer are not to be underestimated. Employers must be aware of these challenges if they are to unleash the potential of this community.
The role of our Morson Forces Ambassador, Corporal Andy Reid MBE, is to help veterans overcome these barriers, supporting them to translate their military skills and experience into job-ready ‘civvy’ language.
Army veteran and triple amputee, having been injured by an IED while on a tour of Afghanistan in 2009, Andy is a vital link between service leavers, our recruitment teams, and clients, working together to identify and capitalise on employment/hiring opportunities.
A key part of Andy and the wider Morson Forces team’s community outreach is events. Each year, the Career Transition Partnership (CTP) and the British Forces Resettlement Services (BFRS) run dozens of events across the country aimed at current and future service leavers. Each event enables networking between potential candidates and employers. For businesses, it’s the perfect opportunity to engage with forces talent and register CVs for future opportunities. Our Morson Forces team attend these events regularly, often in partnership with our clients, helping introduce them to the forces talent pool. With a recruitment team composed of veterans, we provide our clients with unique insight into the ex-forces community and wider talent landscape.
Watch Pat McMullan, Morson Forces Account Manager, at the CTP in Salford:
It’s not just about engagement, it’s about retention. How can employers support recruiting ex-forces personnel and foster a forces-friendly culture?
For veterans to thrive in their new civilian roles, employers must focus on creating an environment of ongoing support and understanding. Our clients who experience the best rates of retention are those who cultivate an internal forces community or support network as well as ongoing investment from a training and development perspective.
Transitioning from military to civilian life is often a significant adjustment. To support, employers could offer:
Tailored support programs, such as mentoring initiatives and skills development workshops.
Create an internal ex-forces group led by ex-forces candidates with networking opportunities – see Amazon, Barclays, and DHL.
Sign the Armed Forces Covenant. With our Gold Award advocacy, we are helping some of our new clients to undertake this.
Use awareness days such as Armed Forces Day to educate civilian workers and celebrate military culture, challenges and experiences – training sessions, guest speakers, or internal communications are all great activations.
By demonstrating a commitment to hiring and supporting veterans through small but significant activities employers can send a powerful message to veterans that their organisation values the skills and experiences of ex-military candidates.
What does the signing of the Armed Forces Covenant demonstrate?
Last month, retailer John Lewis became the 10,000th signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant. Signing the Armed Forces Covenant is a clear way for employers to show their commitment to helping service leavers. The Armed Forces Covenant is a promise by the nation ensuring that those who serve or who have served in the armed forces, and their families, are treated fairly.
Morson Forces have been a proud holder of the Ministry of Defence Gold Award, the highest attainable level for signatories to the covenant, since 2017. We’ve also helped several of our clients on their journey through bronze and silver.
Clients we have helped on their Armed Forces Covenant journey whilst recruiting ex-forces include St. Modwen, Brakes, Marshall and Manchester United.
“Through Morson Forces, we’ve made a commitment to ensuring that once a service leaver begins a new role – either as a Morson employee, permanent staff or contractor with one of our clients – they have access to the support they require through our expert HR and care support teams.
There is nothing else like Morson Forces on the market, which not only makes us best placed to welcome ex-military people into our Group, but ensures we are able to gain all the necessary knowledge and insight required to give these individuals the best chance at starting the next chapter of their lives.“
PAT MCMULLAN, MORSON FORCES
We’re dedicated to supporting organisations as they explore recruiting ex-forces individuals. Whether you’re looking to fill niche roles in your business, engage the ex-forces community or need guidance with the Armed Forces Covenant, we have you covered.
Larissa Vingilis-Jaremko is the Founder & President of the Canadian Association for Girls in Science (CAGIS), Canada’s largest and longest-running STEM club for girls, nonbinary, and gender nonconforming youth aged 7-16. With virtual programming and local clubs that visit labs, workshops, and field sites to meet mentors and do fun, hands-on activities, their aim is to inspire the next generation of girls in STEM in Canada.
With a natural curiosity from a young age and an interest in science and engineering that had been carefully nurtured and encouraged by her parents, Larissa initially had the idea for CAGIS at just nine years old and knew that she wanted to pursue a career in STEM.
For PathFinders, we spoke to her about her career journey, her goals with CAGIS and much more.
Tell us about your early years, when did your interest in STEM first appear?
When I was younger, I was kind of interested in everything. I was a very curious kid. I just wanted to discover and explore and learn. I always had a lot of questions and I discovered, thanks to my parents, that science was a great way to answer questions. When I had these millions of questions, as most kids do, my parents would help me through the scientific method.
My mom is a scientist, she currently works as a professor at Western University and her area of expertise is adolescent at-risk behaviour. My dad was a mechanical engineer and a pilot. So, I got very different types of STEM training from both. On my dad’s side, it was a lot of aviation and building and mechanical stuff. And on my mom’s side very much the research methods, the scientific method. It was a nice balance from them.
We would build things, we would do research. You know, the normally the step one is to start off by reading books and seeing ‘what do we know about this topic?’ But then we would also do experiments where we bring leaves and dirt home. I would prick my finger and look at blood under my microscope. I would explore a lot and science and engineering and tech were just great ways of fulfilling that curiosity I had.
How was school for you? Did you know what you wanted to be from a young age?
I wouldn’t say that I knew exactly what I wanted to be. I was interested in so many different things. I liked science and engineering, but I also love to dance. I wanted to be an astronaut and a lawyer and a professional dancer. I wanted to be all of the things! But STEM was part of that.
In high school I knew I needed to take the science courses, especially with parents who were in STEM. I did just kind of a general science and I ended up focusing on psychology, biology and French as a minor.
Through that, I was debating what path I wanted to take. I ended up in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behaviour. I was really interested in vision science from a cognitive perspective, how the brain processes visual information and how that is affected by visual experience and different typical versus atypical visual experience in development.
I ended up doing my PhD in that. I did some post-doc work and after a few years of post, I was running my organisation, the Canadian Association for Girls in Science, on the side until I saw a grant that was a really good fit, so I applied for it. We were successful and then that actually allowed me to leave academia, which was a hard decision because I love academia. But we have been successful with continuing to get funding so far and we now have a small team of staff in addition to hundreds of volunteers across the country.
What negative stereotypes did you see in school that inspired you to help girls in STEM in Canada?
As I mentioned, I loved science and engineering as a kid because I got to do it in a very hands-on way at home. When I was in school, I saw that a lot of the kids, particularly the girls in my classes, had very different perceptions. They had stereotypes. The typical scientist stereotype, an old white man with wild hair glasses, a lab coat. The perceptions were also that people in STEM were kind of nerdy. They like to stay in their lab. They didn’t socialise, they didn’t have any other interests. These were negative perceptions that were turning a lot of the girls off the subject entirely. For many of them, it was their least favourite subject.
At school, it was very book-learning-related environment. It was a way of exploring it that was different from what I found fun at home, it was different to the way my parents were facilitating that interest in me, so I knew that there was a stereotype that I wanted to break. For example, one day when I was in Grade 4, my teacher had said to our class, “I need a volunteer to set up this experiment really quickly from this science kit. Can I have a volunteer?” Now I have the science kit at home. I knew I could do it really quickly, so I raised my hand and she said “No, Larissa. I need a boy to do this.”
So I started to invite the colleagues of my parents into my classroom, women in science and engineering to be role models and to do some fun, hands-on activities with us so that the other girls in my class could see that the stereotypes aren’t true and STEM can be really fun.
When did you first get the idea to form CAGIS, and why?
My mum was actually involved in the Canadian Coalition of Women in Engineering, Science, Trades and Technology (CCWEST) when I was young, back in 1992. Sometimes I was bought along to it when it was a conference. Instead of pushing me as a kid into the corner, they brought me up to the board table and asked me questions like, ‘what are things like for you as a girl in STEM in Canada?’ and ‘What do you think needs to change. what are things like in your classroom?’.
And so one day I stood up at one of these meetings when I was nine and said I’m going to start an organisation for girls. This is what I plan to do, and they were all really supportive. That gave me the part of the inspiration and the confidence to start. I think because I saw all of these other women who were doing these great things and who were trying to fix the problem.
What is CAGIS and what does it do?
CAGIS is a STEM club for girls and gender diverse youth. It has two main programmes. One of the programmes is our local clubs, or chapters, which we have all across the country. Every month we go on a mini adventure to a different STEM location. These adventures are around 2 hours in length and we get to do fun things like sample fish in a pond. We catching the fish and colleting data with the scientist or we might go to a garage and work with the mechanic and learn how to tune up cars. We’re always going to these really cool locations to do exciting STEM activities to really encourage girls in STEM in Canada.
Then there are our virtual programmes. These happen every week during the school year. There are two one-hour sessions, one for kids, one for teens. Again, we make sure that there are role models present who are STEM experts learning the activities. They’re very hands on, so we might be making ice cream with a food engineer or growing crystals with a chemist. Again, most of the sessions are hands on because that’s the main component that we want to make sure we’re incorporating.
Organisations like CAGIS are doing a lot to balance out the gender divide and encourage girls in STEM in Canada. How do you think the perception of STEM subjects has changed since you were young?
I wish it had changed more. Unfortunately, we’re still seeing the same stereotypes in full force. I think there have been some shifts because one of the main places we get these stereotypes is from the media and from society at large. In the media, we are seeing more women and gender diverse people represented in STEM. So that’s a great step.
There is a task where scientists ask kids to ‘draw a scientist’. And then they rate the drawings based on the stereotypes that are present. We’ve have found that the stereotypes present have reduced over time and the percentage of women scientists that are being drawn by kids has increased. In fact, among 5 to 6-year-olds, they’re drawing equal numbers of male and female scientists, so that’s a great step. But we’re also seeing that as kids get older, by the time they’re 13 or 14, the number of male scientists being drawn are outnumbered 4 to 1. And so that’s kind of an important thing for us to know and that’s why developmental research is so important to make sure that we’re looking across ages.
What would you say the biggest challenges specifically in Canada at the moment with regards to attracting girls into STEM?
If we think of gender equity in STEM as a pipeline, it starts with youth. Making sure that those educational barriers are not present and that we are able to support youth in their education up to post-secondary and beyond. But it continues once we’re looking at the STEM workforce. Making sure that the workforce and the companies and employers are creating equitable spaces for their employees. And then the third component is advancement. We know that women and gender diverse people hit what we sometimes refer to as a glass ceiling. They’re not advancing in their careers at the same rate as men are. And we know that that this is impacted by bias.
There was a study that was done where University professors were given a job application for a lab manager, and they changed the name on the job application from Jane to John and had the university professors rate the job applications with the two names based on which one was more qualified, who was more hireable, etcetera. They found that when the name was a male name that those applications were rated as more qualified, assigned to higher starting salary, assigned more mentorship. They were the same application. And so that’s an example of how this bias this would be an example of implicit bias, how it affects trajectory of youth and adults within STEM.
What are the future plans for CAGIS?
With our local clubs, there continues to be a lot of interest across the country, both from places where we currently have local clubs or chapters and places where we don’t. Our plans are to be able to expand to make sure that we’re meeting that demand and that need and to start local clubs in regions where there’s interest where we don’t currently have them. As far as our virtual programming goes, we want to make sure as many people know about it as possible so that they can join in. We have also a fun new portion of our website that will be launched soon which will involve fun hands-on activities, blog posts written by youth, videos, a more interactive, ongoing way that you can participate in STEM.
If they don’t, if they aren’t able to log on at the right time of our virtual sessions or in person, so it’s just kind of an additional enrichment of our programming.
Morson is committed to helping attract more girls in STEM in Canada. We’re partnering with the Canadian Association for Girls in Science to support their youth programmes.
Are you passionate about building diverse STEM futures? Adept at mentorship with a flair for sharing your skills and knowledge with young people? You might be a candidate! Click here to find out more
