Students Explore Careers
By John Earp
On Wednesday of last week, Jal High School hosted a program known of as Explorers, which is part of Scouting USA (Formerly known as Boy Scouts of America).
According to the Scouting USA website, “Exploring exists to teach important life and career skills to young people from all backgrounds through immersive career experiences and mentorship provided by community and business leaders like you. Together, we equip young people with character, leadership and life skills that can be used both today and in their future careers. Exploring is based on a unique and dynamic relationship between youth and the organizations in their communities. Businesses and community organizations initiate a career-specific Exploring post or club by matching their people and organizational resources to the career interests of youth in the community. The result is a program of interactive activities that helps youth pursue their special interests, grow, and develop. We work with thousands of local, regional, and national businesses and organizations to deliver the Exploring programs representing hundreds of different career fields.” Some of those fields include arts & humanities, fire/emergency medical services, police, aviation, business, communications, healthcare, law & government, science, skilled trades, and social services.
Exploring is designed to help young people, even as young as 6th grade, to explore potential career paths through hands-on mentoring. Representatives from the Jal Police Department, Emergency Medical Services, and Fire Department were present at the Explorers event in the Jal High School Auditorium.
Kristina Ganaway, representing the Exploring program in Jal last week, and who also serves as a Cub Scout Mom, said the program has been active in Lea County for about four years, adding that the program is hoping to be able to expand into more businesses, trades and services in Lea County. She said, “The position that I have right now has been kind of vacant for a little while. I’m a Cub Scout mom. So now that I have it, I’m trying to bring more things, not just for my kids but for my pack. It’s the idea of basically to give them a little bit of a taste of different careers, platform to jump into the career they want.”
Ganaway said that when she was put in touch with administration at Jal Schools, they said, “Let’s do the career surveys and let’s start getting these doors opened.