Robert Dorsey, a malnourished, low-wage earner with a pregnant girlfriend was getting really worried about how to make ends meet when he spotted a flyer promising a career in a field that he had never even considered, but which was about to change his life.

The job offered was at the Montebello Filtration Plant, which serves 1.8 million people, and Dorsey couldn’t be happier.

“Working in the water industry is something I never even imagined. This is a field that isn’t going anywhere. Everybody needs clean drinking water,” he said.

Dorsey finds himself in good company, as he is but one of more than twenty-four graduates of the Baltimore City Water Industry Career Mentoring Program. The program, which is in its third year, is set up to train young people for careers in Baltimore’s Department of Public Works or similar private sector jobs in an attempt to solve two of Baltimore’s biggest problems; pollution in Inner Harbour and Chesapeake Bay, and widespread unemployment.

“It’s a way for people who aren’t college savvy to get a trade that you can do with your hands and still help out and contribute,” Dorsey says. “If this opportunity hadn’t presented itself, I would have been doing a lot of job hopping.”

Officials with the Mayor’s Office of Employment Development say the program came about because of job shortages in the water industry, ranging from working on pipes to fixing erroneous water bills.

The program is open to Baltimore residents between the ages of 18 and 24 who have a high school diploma or GED, are unemployed or are considered underemployed (they have jobs with low wages and little chance for career advancement).

The mentoring program includes job readiness training, introduction to a variety of jobs in the water industry, job shadowing, working with a career coach, and a placement in the city’s summer jobs program, called YouthWorks, after which participants can interview for full-time jobs in the industry.

This type of mentoring programme is a win-win, as it offers much-needed employment and trained personnel for the water industry.

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