Apprenticeship program makes a difference
This week is National Apprenticeship Week. These crucial programs don鈥檛 always get the attention they deserve for boosting the American economy and helping to change lives like mine.
Unfortunately, this program is under threat from the House Republican Labor-HHS-Education funding bill that would eliminate the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA) youth employment and training grant program and gut the adult employment and training program. This means 3,300 slots lost in North Carolina. WIOA funding is what allowed me to go back to school and positively changed the course of my life.
I grew up as the only hearing member of a deaf family. Because my mother, father, brother and sister are deaf, I have always worked as an interpreter for them, and it seemed like a natural career path for me. Receiving WIOA funding allowed me to attend the Interpreter Education program at Western Piedmont Community College, making me the first college graduate in my family. I am now a licensed interpreter for the deaf and hard of hearing. My quality of life is so much better since I鈥檝e had a career path and that was only made possible by WIOA.
WIOA doesn鈥檛 just help its participants, but multitudes of people beyond. Those couple thousand government dollars were a small investment into the ways I鈥檝e been able to help out and give back. My own sister found out about WIOA funding through my experience and is now an interpreter, too. Our family is a testament to the positive and transformative impacts this program has.
WIOA changed my life right here in North Carolina, and it鈥檚 crucial that we don鈥檛 lose that opportunity for others in our state.
Tabitha Arrowood, 麻豆传媒