Trade Winds To Success Annual Report 2024-2025

Shaping Tomorrow’s Success: A Year in Review at Trade Winds to Success

Trade Winds to Success delivers comprehensive pre-apprenticeship training, employment support, and hands-on learning in residential carpentry as well as commercial and industrial trades for Indigenous students in Alberta.

Our programs provide the technical skills, certifications, and confidence needed to launch meaningful, sustainable careers—while fostering pride in culture and community.

This year, we maintained a steady stream of graduates stepping into apprenticeships and trade-focused employment—ready to contribute their skills across Alberta’s construction and industrial sectors.

Highlights from the Year

• Consistent career launches — Participants continued to move into apprenticeships and employment within residential carpentry and commercial/industrial trades, applying their skills in real-world settings.
• Accessible training in communities — Our outreach programming continued to expand, bringing training directly to communities and reducing the financial and logistical barriers of relocation.
• Eco-Smart Residential Construction — Students gained valuable hands-on experience by building energy-efficient homes designed to benefit Indigenous communities in Alberta—earning accredited first-year apprenticeship hours in the process.

Empowering Indigenous Albertan Women in the Trades

A key focus of our work is breaking barriers for Indigenous Albertan women, who remain significantly underrepresented in the skilled trades. Across Canada, women make up only about 4% of the construction workforce, with even lower representation in other trades—Trade Winds is helping to change that.

Our Women in Trades initiative provides:

• Practical, hands-on training in high-demand trades such as carpentry, electrical, and welding.
• Financial and personal support, including tools, training coverage, and career guidance.
• Mentorship and peer community, connecting Indigenous women with each other and with industry professionals.
• Direct employment pathways, facilitating apprenticeships and job opportunities post-training.

The program is transforming lives, with powerful stories from participants like:

• Ladaria Scott, who says her welder pre-apprenticeship was “a long-awaited blessing… helped me finally get my foot in the door.”
• Agathe-Mae Steinhauer, now a carpenter apprentice: “I never knew I could swing a hammer… hired on as a first-year carpenter apprentice.”
• Tiffany Wapass, welding apprentice, whose confidence “skyrocketed” after receiving that “blue book”—proof of what’s possible.

More Than Skills — A Pathway to Opportunity

 

At Trade Winds to Success, we believe our impact goes far beyond technical training. We’re enabling:

• Long-term employment and economic security, through community-rooted apprenticeships.
• Individual empowerment and confidence, especially for women overcoming barriers.
• Community growth and industry innovation, building a stronger, more inclusive trades workforce in Alberta.

As you explore our 2024 Annual Report, you’ll see the tangible results of these training pathways and the real wins—both personal and community-wide—that come from investing in Indigenous Albertans. Together with our partners, sponsors, and supporters, we’re doing more than teaching trades—we’re shaping tomorrow’s success.

📄 Read the full 2024 Annual Report here → Online Flipbook