By CASEY NEILL
A CRANBOURNE apprentice is in the running to be named the state’s best.
Training and Skills Minister Steve Herbert announced the finalists for this year’s Victorian Training Awards on Tuesday 12 July.
Danielle Kazi-Shedden, 24, was among four shortlisted for the Victorian Apprentice of the Year title.
The News reported in May that the Chisholm Dandenong student was doing things a little differently and picking up plenty of awards along the way.
She’s since popped up on promotional billboards and bus shelter posters for the TAFE.
Danielle didn’t achieve the Year 12 results she wanted and spent nine months unemployed before landing a job at Jayco in Dandenong South.
Over the next three years, she tried her hand at different roles and discovered an interest in joinery and carpentry.
“From there I was looking for an apprenticeship and found this shop-fitting role with Whytehall,” she said.
Last year she won Chisholm’s Building and Construction Apprentice of the Year, and was then nominated for a Master Builders’ award.
“I won the overall Joinery Apprentice of the Year, Metro Apprentice of the Year, and Victorian State Apprentice of the Year. That was last year, in April,” she said.
“I was a little bit in shock at the time, it didn’t really sink in.”
It all happened again this year.
“I won the Chisholm Building and Construction Apprentice of the Year again and the overall Apprentice of the Year. I also won the CEO’s award,” Danielle said.
“I just got a scholarship to do some more courses with Chisholm, so I’m signing up to do a Certificate IV in Building and Construction and then, hopefully, I’ll move onto my diploma.”
The Victorian Training Awards will be presented on Friday 26 August. All individual category winners will become finalists in the Australian Training Awards.
