YukonU aims to provide education films to potential h2o remedy operators throughout Canada

YukonU aims to provide education films to potential h2o remedy operators throughout Canada

Jon Widney can not support but smile as he talks about the way college students studying to be drinking water therapy operators are remaining taught these days.

“It would have been an much easier discovering method, that’s for positive,” claimed Widney.

Widney is an teacher in the drinking water and wastewater operator application at Yukon University in Whitehorse.

That approach he is referring to is a new finding out tool the university is producing in partnership with the Calgary NGO H2o Motion.

A QR code on a sticker on a metal pipe.
A QR code on a piece of equipment. (George Maratos/CBC)

For the previous 7 days, Widney and Bita Malekian, a Water Movement ambassador, have been stationed in the university’s cellular h2o remedy plant, applying QR codes to various pieces of products. 

Just about every 1 of the codes will eventually be related to a distinctive YouTube movie, out there in an on the net finding out library.

“What we have been undertaking is filming Jon the expert,” claimed Malekian. “The learners just open up their phone and scan it around the QR code and they are taken to the instruction video.”

Young woman, smiling.
Bita Malekian is an ambassador with the Calgary-primarily based Water Motion. (George Maratos/CBC)

In full, about 20 various videos are getting designed.

“It truly is essentially been very the neat encounter recording all the movies,” claimed Widney. “It is a little bit nerve-wracking to be on digicam, but I you should not intellect since it’s a definitely great project, and vital.”

‘Short-handed all around’

The new way of training could not appear at a greater time.

Widney, who’s labored in the industry for 20 several years and operates a plant himself, claims there usually are not enough staff to fill all the h2o cure employment in the Yukon.

“Each and every plant that I’ve been into, they are all always seeking for far more operators, from the huge city of Whitehorse to the village of Haines Junction to my very little subdivision in the center of nowhere — it’s limited-handed all about,” said Widney.

“The h2o industry is so enormous and it will in no way stop, we are going to constantly want h2o therapy for as prolonged as we are on this planet.”

The moment the videos produced in the Yukon are full, they will be additional to Drinking water Movement’s website.

Malekian claims the intention is to deliver the expertise through their on line library to whomever would like it, with the massive objective staying more Indigenous h2o operators and by way of that, clear drinking water for all Canadians.

“It is really a nationwide disgrace that we nonetheless have 33 extended-term h2o advisories in Canada,” claimed Malekian. “Canada has just one of the largest freshwater reserves and we still see so lots of Very first Nations without the need of obtain to clear water.

“Indigenous water remedy operators are truly the hidden heroes doing the job to deliver thoroughly clean water to their community, and any way we can support them and present them with methods, we’re hoping to fill that hole.”

The new coaching videos are envisioned to go stay on Water Movement’s internet site this spring.