A Winnipeg construction company is giving young men in the North End a step up in their careers and community, while also offering a step out of a life of gangs and crime.
Step Up Construction launched in 2021 as a program run by Inner City Youth Alive, helping provide employment to youth and young adults in the inner city, and help them find a healthy path forward in life.
“It was just really enthralling (my) heart, seeing men being empowered and really making a difference in their lives and their families’ lives. And hopefully changing the trajectory of where they were going previously,” said Anthony Ho, the social enterprise director of Step Up Construction.
Ho says the program helps workers with more than just learning carpentry and renovation skills, it also helps them become fully job-ready, ensuring things like their driver’s licences, social insurance numbers and bank accounts are all in order.
“There was a young man that came to us and on his resume, it said, ‘I want to pay my rent with my grandmother.’ And so those are the kinds of impacts that people (have) when they partner with Step Up Construction, is that young men are able to get off EI, welfare and be a productive member of society,” Ho told Global News.
“I had a gentleman about a week ago telling me he would still be in the gang life if he didn’t get an opportunity. Now he’s going to be a father, he’s moved out on his own with his common-law girlfriend, and he’s looking forward to being a dad and a husband.”
Ho says he has seen the program impact young men in remarkable ways.
“I came from a life of addiction. In 2005, I got my life cleaned up and started a journey, and today I get to see young men flourish,” he said.
“And it’s just an incredible experience to see men come from a place of despair and watch them journey along in hope and success and actually thriving and being excited about what’s in store for them in their future.”
Alex Campbell, a general labourer with Step Up Construction, says he’s experienced a real sense of community with his colleagues in the five months he’s been working there.
“Maybe they had a little bit of a tougher life when they come here, and they see the guys…. (It’s) not like a normal construction company where guys are swearing at each other, bickering at each other. Toxic work environment is not what we strive for,” Campbell said.
“You take a lot of pride in it. Meeting these guys, learning who they are, and finding out what their issues are and what their struggles are, and we kind of just work around that.”
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The sense of community is also something Jonas Mitchell has felt since he became a crew lead at Step Up last spring.
“It’s like a big family here, everybody is always happy to see each other,” Mitchell said, adding he’s seen improvements in his colleagues’ confidence levels after starting at Step Up.
“People who are new and have been here for a few months now, I notice they’re more confident,” Mitchell said.
“And that’s nice to see.… Grow. Always.”
It also had a positive impact on Mitchell himself, finding his voice in a leadership role among the crew. He also hopes to get his Red Seal at Red River Polytechnic and eventually start his own renovation company.
“I don’t know how to put it into words … but it’s kind of heartwarming in a way,” Mitchell said. “When you’re teaching somebody, and they learn and then you watch them apply those skills you taught them. It’s pretty good.”
Kent Dueck, the executive director and founder of Inner City Youth Alive, says it’s something that’s desperately needed in the North End, a community that is often gripped by crime and violence.
“We’ve always felt that the highest form of charity is to offer someone a job,” Dueck said.
“A number of years back, a gang member came to us and told us, ‘You guys got to stop telling people to get out of gangs.’ And we were kind of puzzled by that statement, but he said, ‘If you don’t offer somebody a job, then (when) baby needs diapers, they’re going to have to go back to the gang life.’
“So, this is a response to trying to offer youth tangible ways out.”
Andrew Braun, the general manager of Inner City Youth Alive, says he thinks “the biggest impact is a sense of healthy community and healthy relationships that it creates.”
“When a lot of these guys are coming in, they are coming from situations that are really hard, and for a lot of them they haven’t seen the opportunity where there’s a crew of people, there’s leader that’s advocating for them, that’s there for them, listening,” he said.
Braun says it also starts to have a ripple effect within the North End community.
“When I see the resilience of the individuals that are in this program right now, these leaders that are all within this William Whyte-North End community, and they have so much potential and they are just offering so much,” he said.
“They want to see things change, they want to bring about the change, they want to help their community that’s hurting, and that makes me very hopeful in the midst of things that are really tough.”
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