When Vermont Works for Women was awarded a WANTO (Women in Apprenticeship and Non-Traditional Occupations) grant from the Department of Labor one year ago, we were excited to get back to our roots and train women for jobs in the construction trades. What we didn’t anticipate was how excited Vermont… Read More
Kristen* first reached out to Vermont Works for Women in 2013 when she was just 22 years old, a single mother of a 6 year old, recovering from alcohol addiction, with recent criminal justice involvement. At the time, she saw herself as a community college dropout who had very little… Read More
For our 21st annual Women Can Do conference on October 17, 2019, the local weather forecast called for a Nor’easter with 100% chance of heavy rain, and 35 mph winds. However, the tents were up, permission slips collected, buses scheduled, and food ordered. Nothing was going to stop… Read More
By Nell Carpenter, Rosie’s Girls Coordinator Campers working together to build a picnic table This past summer, I received a text from a Rosie’s Girls instructor one Thursday morning asking, “Where’s the hardware for the picnic table? We’re doing it!” The picnic table she was referring to was, last… Read More
Every Friday, Heather Newcomb, Work Readiness Program Manager at VWW, leads skill-building classes for women who are incarcerated at the Chittenden Regional Correctional Facility (CRCF). Last week, participants learned about Mike Bayer’s #BestSelfChallenge, a fun and easy exercise in which you define your Best Self (all of the positive attributes and qualities that make up the core of who you are; i.e.- compassionate, brave, loyal, loving, creative) and your Anti Self (your inner critic, that provokes you and that gets in the way of your Best Self by focusing on negative qualities; i.e.- fearful, doubtful, anxious, angry), in a side-by-side drawing. Read More
By Elise Greaves, WANTO Program Coordinator In 2019, Vermont Works for Women launched Vermont’s first-ever networking platform for women and gender non-conforming individuals in the trades. The group, called Vermont Tradeswomen, offers a place for women and gender non-conforming trades professionals (and those who support them) to connect, ask… Read More
This summer marks the 20th anniversary of Vermont Works for Women's Rosie's Girls camp. To celebrate, we asked former and current campers, supporters, friends, and staff to tell us about their Rosie's Girls experience by completing our fun new Camp Lib. Check out some of their responses! Read More
By Carolyn Cooke, Chair, Board of Directors, Vermont Works for Women It is with a mix of sadness and gratitude that the Board of Directors announces Jen Oldham’s departure as Executive Director of Vermont Works for Women (VWW), at the end of 2019. For the past two years, Jen… Read More
On Monday, May 20th, Vermont Works for Women graduated fourteen women and gender non-conforming individuals from its new Trailblazers: Women in the Construction Trades pre-apprenticeship program at SkillTech (Center for Technology at Essex). Read More
We are the sum of our experiences, and what we experience early on is the catalyst to helping us create who we become. Which is why it is so important that programs like Rosie’s Girls exist, to provide young girls the opportunity to learn a variety of skills that they might not otherwise encounter through conventional learning. Read More