A New Job Track for Single Mothers in Wyoming - Climb Wyoming
| March 6, 2008 |  View for printing |
The lunch table was full of people in the same boat: Single mothers who are trainees in the hydraulics and pipe-fitting trades, thrown together and traveling to a place none of them could quite imagine.
“I don’t know how I want to say this,” said Lillian McEwan, who is 31 and a mother of four. “But I trust you guys more than people that I’ve known all my life.”
For a moment, silence. Then it seemed everyone spoke at once. Hands reached out to touch. Heads nodded in understanding.
“We’ve all had our hearts broken,” said Shannon Heidelberg, 36, who is raising a 12-year-old and a 2-year-old. “But there’s no one here who’s going to turn around and hurt you.”
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Climb Wyoming http://www.climbwyoming.org/
Strengthening Wyoming's Workforce, And Wyoming's Families
The CLIMB Wyoming programs train and place single mothers in higher paying jobs.
In Wyoming and across the U.S., households headed by single mothers are the most likely to live in poverty. Single mother families constitute almost 60% of all Wyoming families in poverty. (ACS 2006) According to the U.S. Department of Labor's 2006 report, Wyoming women earn only 63 cents for every dollar earned by men - one of the largest wage disparities between genders in any state.
CLIMB graduates consistently double or triple their monthly wage income, the impact of which will be felt for generations to come.
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By KIRK JOHNSON
Full Story: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/06/us ... 70&emc=eta1
(Many thanks to Peter Bertelsen, Program Director, Prospera Business Network http://www.ProsperaBusinessNetwork.com for passing this along. Russ)
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