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January 5, 2009
By Cassandra Stern
Apollo News Service  NEW ORLEANS - The shape of a national clean energy, good jobs training program for young people is gaining real definition here, where 800 young people are beginning full-time service as part of the Conservation Corps of Greater New Orleans, earning real money, educational stipends and preparing for careers in the new green economy while helping rebuild their hurricane and flood-damaged city from the ground up.
The school system is being rebuilt, the city is being rebuilt. The question now is how do you make sure this is an inclusive process? "This is the one time that a city actually has the opportunity to be reborn and be better,” said Jim Gordon, program manager for Limitless Vistas, Inc., a nonprofit workforce training and development program. Limitless collaborates with the national Conservation Corps network to train at-risk, inner-city youth for work as certified environmental field technicians. “The school system is being rebuilt, the city is being rebuilt. The question now is how do you make sure this is an inclusive process?” The New Orleans green-collar training program is an example of both the need and opportunity to train American workers for the myriad jobs that the Apollo Alliance and many labor economists anticipate in the new clean energy economy...Read more
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