WELLINGTON, PEI – April 5, 2019 – A short promotional video on La Coopérative Le Chez-nous’ positive experience with the PERCÉ internship program has just been launched, just in time to help recruit employers for the 30 participants of this summer’s 16th edition of the program.

In the two-minute, 46-second clip, general manager Edgar Arsenault explains how the interns contributed their talents and know-how to help staff provide quality services to the elderly residents of the Wellington community care center. He adds that the Chez-nous was so impressed with some of the interns that they were kept on staff after their internships.

Arsenault notes that the program helps repatriate young postsecondary students that were mostly studying outside the province. From a personal perspective, he adds that his two daughters participated in PERCÉ and both returned to PEI to live and start their careers.

The Chez-nous, which won RDÉE Canada’s national Lauriers de la PME award, in the Service Business category, last fall, is about to start a major expansion so that it can add manor care services.

PERCÉ program supervisor Stéphane Blanchard, youth development officer with RDÉE Prince Edward Island, notes that the clip is part of a three-video series that was produced to mark the 15th anniversary of the program. RDÉE Canada was one of the key partners in the production of the series. In fact, filming was done last November while youth development officers from the national network were on PEI for one of their regular gatherings; they can be seen with the seniors during their tour of the Chez-nous.

The first entrepreneurial video, launched earlier this year, featured Trout River Industries in Coleman, another business that benefitted from PERCÉ internships. The third clip will feature The Bottle Houses in Cape Egmont; it will be filmed and launched this summer when the tourist attraction’s flower gardens are in full bloom.

The first two clips are presented in French as well as in English subtitled versions. The third video, to also discuss the hosting of interns, will actually feature two separate clips, one in French and one in English.
The two first videos – on Le Chez-nous and on Trout River– can be watched at www.rdeeipe.net/videos/ and on social media.

RDÉE PEI retained the services of videographer Jean Lavergne of Summerside to produce the series. A similar series of videos had been produced a few years ago to help recruit interns. Organizers figured it would also be a good idea to produce a new series geared specifically to help recruit host employers.

The new series of videos was made possible with funding from the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Department of Workforce and Advanced Studies.

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CUTLINE: Elderly resident Lorraine Gallant and general manager Edgar Arsenault from La Coopérative Le Chez-nous in Wellington are shown chatting in the newly released PERCÉ promotional video.

For more information:

Stéphane Blanchard
Youth Development Officer
RDÉE Prince Edward Island
902-370-7333, Ext. 402
stephane@rdeeipe.org