With the Peel region showing the highest unemployment rate in the state, Lithographic Institute of Australia (LIA) apprentice of the year is urging residents to shop local to encourage business owners to award more apprenticeships to teenagers.
Drum Print digital printer Jessica McAuley, 18, won the $15,000 Visual Connections LIA Graduate of the Year awards this month.
After winning the award Ms McAuley is now encouraging other Peel businesses to get behind school leavers and encourage them to be the best they can be in the workforce.
Ms McAuley started at Drum Print as part of her workplace learning in year 12 which gave her two weeks work experience at Drum Print and Publications in Mandurah.
“It was after this I knew I had found something I had a passion to do, a career that made me want to work as hard as I could during the week,” she said.
“The passion I have for my job makes me want to share it with others, I want to show the younger generation that you can love your job when you leave school, and I want to show the older generation that it’s not all doom and gloom in printing.”
Ms McAuley has big plans of what she will spend her prize money on.
She hopes to draw the public’s attention towards printing and educate school leavers and university students about the industry and the creative benefits it holds.
“This is what some of my money is going to be used for, I will be doing a marketing certificate next year while working full time at Drum Print so I can use it in working towards creating some industry advertising to get the public aware,” she said.
The national biennial award winners were selected from a field of nine finalists who had already won the Graduate of the Year award for their respective states.
Ms McAuley said she was very thrilled to win and also excited with where the future of the printing industry was going.
“I know it is going to change and grow into something big and I want to be at the forefront of this,” she said.
