Port Alberni’s Pacific Coast University for Workplace Health Sciences has been awarded a grant from Veteran Affairs Canada to train 25 disabled Veterans through their return to work disability management education program.
University founder Wolfgang Zimmerman said the Canadian Government has committed to hiring 5000 people with disabilities, and these Veterans will become the leaders in helping injured workers reintegrate.
He said the 25 Veterans will be part of an industry leading program to get others like them back into the workforce.
Zimmerman said PCU courses are only available online, but they are working towards a day when hundreds of students will be coming to Port Alberni to take advantage of the specially constructed classrooms and lecture facilities at their campus on Cherry Creek Road.
Zimmerman is also celebrating his biennial International Forum on Disability Management conferences, which started in Port Alberni 18 years ago, has been signed over to a United Nations agency for them to organize in perpetuity.
It has become so successful, that it has been taken over by the International Social Security Association, a United Nations affiliated organization located in Geneva with more than 330 member organizations in 150 countries.
The conference has been hosted by countries around the globe and will be in Belgium in 2020.
Zimmerman signed over the International Federation of Disability Management name and symbol at their most recent conference that just concluded in Vancouver.