More Career Help For WCC Working Adults

By CAROL CHANG

Hawaii’s community colleges have reworked the Ready, Set, Grow career-track program and, with new grant sources, are introducing the Individualized Career Achievement Network (iCAN) this fall.

“It helps bridge the educational gaps in our working population,” explained Roya Dennis, iCAN program director at Windward Community College, where the free, fast-track service already has shown encouraging results. The school plans to share this good news during an open house from 4 to 7 p.m. Aug. 9 and 14 in Hale Kuhina 114. (Fall session starts Aug. 27 and iCAN has open enrollment through Oct. 1.)

Citing a unique partnership with eight local and federal sources, Dennis said: “What all this means to our potential students is we can offer a network of training and certification with little to no cost to the students … It’s designed to help them improve their reading, writing, math, data and computer skills in preparation for a new career.”

Dennis lists two specific success stories on the Kaneohe campus:

* A fast-food employee and mother of two who now is enrolled in WCC’s Certified Nursing Assistant program and aiming for her LPN license.

* A security guard who achieved a Workforce Readiness Certificate and is now studying to earn his Marine Option Program certification, and maybe Aquaponics after that. “Without the fast-track and support of iCAN,” she said, “he may never have taken the step toward pursuing his lifelong dream of working on the ocean and taking care of the land.”

For more information on iCAN and the open house, call 235-7381.