By Eric Smith
Every day the necessities of life continue to grow more costly. A steady, well-paying job has never been more critical.
Equally prohibitive, is getting across the threshold to access those very jobs. That’s where the Red Bridge Lions, a chapter of the Lions Club International, wants to do something
The Red Bridge Lions met at Jess and Jim’s Steakhouse Tuesday night near Holmes Road and 135th Street, to hear from Sheoni Givens, and Chif’Von Allen of New Reflections Technical Institute about how to tackle this very issue.
Givens, New Reflections’ President and Chief Operating Officer, noted that frequently, the first challenge job seekers face is the notion that college is a mandatory path to success.
“Your parents are saying ‘You have to go to college; you have to go to college.’ They’re preparing you to go to college,” Givens said. “And then I walk in and say ‘Hey, I have an alternative, and it’ll only take you six weeks.”
New Reflections Technical Institute, located at 8625 Troost Ave, offers a menagerie of different courses aimed at providing their students with avenues to employment and career advancement that not only differs from a traditional university, but one that is also substantially faster.
New Reflections’ programs are 6 to 12 weeks in length and include a culinary program, bookkeeping and accounting pathway, and has courses in entrepreneurship essentials and digital marketing coming soon.
The flagship program, according to Evans, though, is the commercial driver’s license program–a six-week course that she says is being driven by an industry with more than 60,000 empty seats behind the wheel.
“It’s a great segue for somebody that doesn’t require you to have a GED, doesn’t require you to have a degree,” Evans said. “It’s something somebody can go (straight) into, they just need the skills.
“Getting skilled workers and giving them an alternative to (traditional) education…because going to college isn’t something that you have to do and still make a good living.”
“You can be an electrician, a plumber, and make six figures,” Evans said.
For more information, visit www.newreflectionstech.org.
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