Emerging Builders creates opportunities for Women, Black, and other People of Color in the construction trades.
Resulting from the significant underrepresentation of Women, Black, Indigenous and People of Color in the construction trades paired with a skilled labor shortage, Emerging Builders exists to provide the skills and opportunities that future construction leaders need to compete and win contracts in their communities in Kansas City.
Program participants, known as “Builders,” are recruited in cohorts of six and are employed immediately at a competitive rate as they are trained in an apprenticeship model. The cohort is intentionally small, ensuring that support can be scaffolded and apprentices will succeed. The Emerging Builders apprenticeship learning model provides participants with both the tangible workforce skills to be successful in the construction trades in tandem with leadership skills.
Emerging Builders maintains a deeply held belief that the participating Builders have untapped potential that can be unlocked by teaching them marketable skills, responsible workplace behavior and then holding them accountable for that behavior by creating a positive culture and learning environment where they can experience success and accomplishment.