Defence Team News Interview with Marie-Anne Jutras and Prima Mabonzo, on the Civilian Women Engagement event in Drummondville, QC
Video / July 06, 2022
Transcript
(GG) The Drummondville Armoury, in Quebec, recently held an event for civilian women, giving them the opportunity to experience a day as a Primary Reservist. Today, we are speaking with Prima Mabonzo, one of the participants, and Marie-Anne Jutras, Manager of the Montreal Strategic Partner Engagement Office. Thank you for joining us today. What activities and experiences were available to the civilian women who took part in the event?
(MAJ) Yes. That is, hello. What happened is, we decided to work with the Recruiting Centre, which was organizing a recruitment day for young women, to have women experience a day in the shoes of a female service member. And we decided to invite women leaders to join us at this event. And we thought, why not approach the organization Business Professional Women Montréal (BPW Montréal), to ask them to participate in the event. So, we invited several of these women, who are very involved in their community, to join us, and our participants were able to do a Forces physical fitness test, try our gunfire simulator, look at military vehicles and all kinds of activities like those. But above all, and this is what’s important for us, they were able to hear testimony from female service members about their journey within the Canadian Armed Forces, positive testimony about these experiences, and they could discuss the different employment opportunities available to young women from our….from Canada.
(GG) What did you think of the "a day in the military" experience?
(PM) The experience of spending a day in the military was really enriching. The experience is enriching. And I would say that it was a pretty unusual experience. So I’ll start by saying that I was surprised, pleasantly surprised, by the professionalism of the people who hosted us. The day was really thought out well in that all our questions were answered. And I was able to see the diversity of careers available. At the end of the day, I left thinking, "There is room for everyone in the Canadian army."
(GG) What was your favourite moment of the day?
(PM) I would say that my favourite moment of the day was really the camaraderie, the atmosphere, the authenticity of the people who were there, their willingness to answer all our questions. In fact, there were so many questions that we finished after the set time! This goes to show just how open they were to guiding us throughout the day. The Forces test was also a stand-out moment of the day. It was the moment that all the women there were dreading, me included. So, there was a lot of laughter.
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