MP supports working women
Cariboo Press – Golden Star
September 2, 2008

Last week Jim Abbott, MP for the Kootenay Columbia region, visited the Golden Women's Centre to talk about their role in the community of Golden and discuss the completion of the "Putting Women on the Payroll" project.

Laurie Dalzell, executive director at the Golden Women's Resource Centre said the point of the project, funded by the Status of Women Canada, was to determine how Golden as a community could overcome barriers women were experiencing when attempting to enter the workforce. "The opportunity to speak with Jim Abbott was a great way to say thank you for his ongoing support and to let him know what a success the program was," said Dalzell.

Dalzell explained to Abbott that in response to the labour shortage that existed in Golden in 2006, the Golden Women's Resource Centre put together a project that would explore the under-utilized labour resource in the community-women. "We proposed that there were women who could work or could work more if certain barriers were overcome. The overall objectives of this project were to enhance women's access to resources and information to help them find and keep satisfying employment and to work with willing, local employers to increase their understanding of the barriers women face and to find feasible solutions to these issues."

The three main barriers women said they experienced were lack of education or computer skills, transportation and child-care or lack thereof….