Hear from honoree Rosalin Acosta, former Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development in Massachusetts and current Managing Director, Government and Public Sector at EY.
Apprentice Learning is celebrating 10 years of providing real-world work experiences for eighth graders. At such a critical period in a young person’s life, these are the opportunities that ignite growth and change and spark passions and interests. We work alongside community members and business partners who support us in exposing young people to as many careers as possible in the hope of sparking an interest in careers that have the potential to shape their own future workforce.
As we celebrate our 10th anniversary, we are highlighting the incredible partners and champions we’ve had. Rosalin Acosta has championed Apprentice Learning since its founding. Former Secretary Acosta leveraged her passion to make the world a better place for the next generation to ensure that workers, employers, and the unemployed had the tools and training needed to succeed in the Massachusetts economy. In this blog, she shares why she believes in the work of Apprentice Learning.
Tell me how you came to be connected with Apprentice Learning.
I met Helen Russell, current Executive Director of Apprentice Learning, and learned about the mission. When we talked, she mentioned that the kids she worked with have lived around these big, tall, glassy towers for their entire life, but had never been inside. Apprentice Learning takes them inside these buildings and helps them learn the basics. They learn how to walk into a corporate lobby, how to register, and show ID, all these things that we take for granted. It can be very intimidating the first time you walk into these buildings. To give kids that ice breaker and say, “you too can walk into these lobbies like everybody else, you too belong here”, is very powerful. The image of young people looking out the window from the 20th, 30th, 40th floors of these buildings, looking at their neighborhood from that perspective, is a pretty phenomenal visual.
At the Office of Labor and Workforce Development, we were always trying to connect more kids with the labor market. The idea of helping as many kids as we possibly could, in particular underserved kids, in order to have a level playing field has always been something that’s driven me. I think that it has a lot to do with the way I grew up. I was an immigrant, daughter of immigrants, and my family just did not have a broad professional network I could benefit from. There was never anyone saying to me, “this is what you should do”. There’s a lot of metaphor in what Apprentice Learning does – breaking through, breaking into the lobby, taking that elevator to the top floors and seeing yourself on top of the city – that gives young people the opportunity to see themselves in spaces and in careers they may not have considered.
Reflecting on their 10 year anniversary, what comes to mind?
My response is similar to what I said in the beginning. For me, it’s the ability to imagine, the ability to see yourself and hopefully see others doing what you might want to do or what you never thought you could do. Apprentice Learning is, to me, a little bit of the preamble to what I’m very passionate about, which is actual apprenticeship programs. When there’s a tight labor force, like we are experiencing now, and there’s high demand in industries like biotech and STEM fields, to be able to give young people pathways to those high demand and high paying occupations is vital. We need mechanisms to provide more exposure to career choices. Kids should see what lab technicians do or what health care providers do, for example. That’s what Apprentice Learning is doing. They are creating the ability for kids to imagine, and opening a lens to a world that they may never have had an opportunity to see.
Do you have any final thoughts on Apprentice Learning?
I think it’s important to point out the diversity of the kids that Apprentice Learning serves. Making sure that Black and Latino kids can see themselves in biotech, cybersecurity, finance or banking careers, which are not as diverse as the communities they serve. Creating this exposure to these important industries will begin to lay the ground for an equitable and prosperous workforce. To me, that is the important work that Apprentice Learning is doing and that we all have to keep doing.
Join us for our 10th anniversary celebration
Thursday, May 4th from 6:00-9:00 PM
Loring Greenough House, 12 South St, Jamaica Plain, MA 02130
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