Lakeland College prepares students for workforce
Remote Aboriginal community has kept tradition alive
Celebrating an important milestone toward First Nation control over education on-reserve in BC
Millennium Scholarship Foundation distributes 53,000 bursaries worth total of $145 million
Labour shortage prompts Saskatchewan to spend $6.9 million on new training
Lakeland College prepares students for workforce
Kitchen hustle and dining room bustle have the feel of any typical restaurant, but the four weeks of meal preparation and serving for Lakeland College tourism ready-to-work students is a proving ground for the skills they’ve learned.
Whether planning and cooking, or placing glassware and cutlery correctly, the students are using knowledge and skills from twelve weeks of classes in the entry-level tourism program.
“I would recommend this program to anyone who is looking to develop their skills so they can make some money,” says Mavis Pahtayken, Tourism – Cook and Fine Dining student. “I started at Lakeland College taking employment skills enhancement and now with this program I will have the skills I need to find a job as a banquet server so I can make some money while I continue my education.”
On average, this program is offered twice in a 12 month period and each offering has 20 seats available. The most recent class that started on September 18 and completed December 8 has learned an abundance of skills over their 12 week training period.
The program includes courses in professionalism, general tourism knowledge, safety and sanitation, office operation, life management, job search skills, food safety and safety tickets needed in the food and beverage industry including first aid/CPR and WHMIS.
The Tourism - Cook and Fine Dining Program at Lakeland College gives students hands-on experience.
All 16 students in the most recent class have different reasons for pursuing the completion of this program. Pahtayken says she is furthering her skills to reach her goals. In the new year, she’s enrolled in academic upgrading at Lakeland College. Her long term goal is to become a Cree teacher at the Onion Lake First Nation school.
“I am doing this for my sister, Jarita Naistus, who passed away before she was able to finish this program,” says Alayne Dillon, “I am doing it in her honour.”
Lakeland College started offering the tourism program at the Lloydminster campus in 2002. The need continues to grow as the food and beverage industry continues to need trained people in their establishments.
“This type of program in working relationship with Service Canada, Saskatchewan Tourism Education Council and Job Start/Future Skills appeals to various sectors but this specific program attracts people that want to work in the service industry,” says Margo Hines, Saskatchewan programming facilitator for Lakeland College.
The next offering of the program is March 2007. Students apply to Lakeland College and there is funding available. Each student receives one outfit for their skills specific section of training that includes either working in the kitchen preparing the food or out on the floor serving the customers.
Remote Aboriginal community has kept tradition alive
By Marie Wadden
The pride and joy of Canada's most remote and healthiest Aboriginal community is plain to see on its website.
Www.oldcrow.ca shows photos of this year's high school graduates – four young men and two young women – outside the school. The young men wear their caps and gowns with flair; one has his arms crossed and his head cocked as though challenging the world to defeat him.
Sunshine reflects the healthy sheen on the long dark hair of the female graduates. One has her arm around an elderly Gwichin man.
Old Crow graduates put high priority on family and community.
Six high school graduates from a community of 300 may not seem like a big accomplishment. But think of the challenges.
Old Crow is in the Yukon and has no roads connecting it to anywhere else. It's 200 kilometres above the Arctic Circle and closer to the Alaskan border than to any place in Canada. If you think of Canada having four corners, Old Crow is the most northwestern corner.
After university, many of these graduates will want to go home because, despite its remoteness, Old Crow is a good place to live.
There hasn't been a suicide in Old Crow since 1996. That death might not even have been a suicide.
"It was a person with a mental disorder," Chief Joe Linklater explains, "and we might have prevented it had we been able to act more quickly."
This is remarkable considering the suicide rate in many other Aboriginal communities is many times higher than the Canadian average. No agency is keeping count, but in northern Ontario there's fear it may be 40 times higher.
One academic study always cited on the subject of Canada's high Aboriginal suicide rate was conducted in B.C. by professors Chris Lalonde and Michael Chandler. The professors looked for the factors that made communities with low suicide rates different from more troubled communities. They learned that the healthiest communities are the most self-governing. The less Ottawa, the less suicide.
Old Crow has had self-government since 1995. That's also when Linklater was elected to lead the community at the age of 30.
"We've learned more about governance in the past 11 years than all our years under the Indian Act," he says. "We've come a huge distance in a short while, especially when you consider the Territorial government is 70 years old, and the Canadian government is 140 years old. I'm proud of what we've accomplished."
Linklater has a lot of help. He's leads a very inclusive governing system. His small band council, just four elected members, administers the community's services. Policy is set by the Elders Council, a Tribal court and the General Assembly.
You can get a surprising amount of business done this way.
"We held a general assembly this weekend," Linklater says, "and 40-50 people attended. We passed 24 resolutions in three hours. There was no yelling or screaming. We got consensus and compromise."
Self-government must also lower addiction rates. Old Crow is so comfortable with its social health, it is considering dropping a 15-year-old ban on the consumption and possession of alcohol.
You wouldn't tamper with something that's not broken, so why consider abolishing a law that seems to be keeping everyone sober?
"There's more alcohol here now than there was 15 years ago," says Linklater. Bootleggers have been able to get alcohol and drugs past the RCMP even in this remote place.
Drinking and drug use are not big problems in the community, but Linklater is afraid if the bootleggers are not put out of busines they may use their connections to start smuggling worse things.
Not everyone in town is comfortable with lifting the alcohol ban. When Linklater tried to strike a committee to make recommendations, he couldn't find anyone who was neutral. There are strong feelings all around.
So an independent facilitator is to be hired to chair community meetings until a consensus is reached.
Linklater says he likes a beer from time to time, but won't drink in the community as long as it's illegal. There are others like him who feel Old Crow has enough going for it to make moderate drinking possible.
They might be right.
Old Crow hasn't suffered the same losses as most other Canadian Aboriginal communities. The habitat of the Porcupine River caribou herd, the community's main food source, has not been destroyed by a hydro electric project or a logging operation. Old Crow's isolation has been its saving grace. The people still have their land.
On the town's website, the radiant pictures of the 2006 graduating ceremony provide insight into the source of the chief's confidence about its future.
Elders in floor-length black and red Gwichin gowns, embroidered with traditional emblems, dance and clap as they lead the students into the community hall for the graduation ceremony.
The students are shown with their caps and gowns set aside, relaxing in soft caribou-skin dresses and vests, embroidered in the Gwichin tradition.
Saskatchewan sociologist Dr. Richard Thatcher says Aboriginal students who are grounded in their culture and raised to be comfortable outside of it have the best chance to avoid addiction and other social problems. Bicultural youth have greater choices.
Children in Old Crow learn the same curriculum as other students in B.C., but there are lots of additions, like the Gwitchin language and traditions.
"The school is an integral part of the community life and many of the local people work with the students. This is especially true of the Elders who spend a lot of time teaching the pupils legends, how to trap, fish and hunt," the website explains.
Chief Linklater wants to strengthen the students' grasp of math and the sciences with more instruction on the land.
"We'll study biology while out trapping the animals," he says, "and physics by looking at the property of snow. Our environment is a living laboratory."
The challenges his students face have been turned into opportunities.
This year's graduates – Wade Kaye, Amanda and Travis Frost, Malinda Bruce, Robert Linklater and Floyd McGinnis – had to leave home after Grade 9 to attend high school in Whitehorse, 600 kilometres south.
For three years, they lived away from their families, returning only in the summer.
But their families never left them. Old Crow is one big extended family and Gwichin families in Whitehorse support the students so they won't get too homesick.
The chief is not saying where he stands on Resolution 11-2005, the alcohol ban, but you just have to read between the lines. It's not on his short list of reasons Old Crow is so healthy.
"Strength of culture would be one reason we're a healthy community," he says. "The strength of the Gwichin language is another. Third, our strong sense of community – everybody looks out for one another. And finally, we all feel ownership of what's going on because we have self-government."
Linklater believes his community is on the right course, where alcoholism and other addictions will not be an issue in another generation even if the prohibition is lifted.
There is, however, another potential threat.
The United States has been talking about developing oil and gas projects in the sensitive calving and wintering grounds of the Porcupine Caribou herd.
If these projects go ahead and the caribou herd is affected, the Gwichin
of Old Crow may suffer the kind of trauma that has harmed so many other Aboriginal people.
For now they're doing everything under their control to prepare their children for whatever the future holds.
Celebrating an important milestone toward First Nation control over education on-reserve in BC
The Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development and Federal Interlocutor for Métis and Non-Status Indians, is pleased with the fast passage of Bill C-34: First Nations Jurisdiction Over Education in British Columbia Act through the House of Commons. Bill C-34 has now been referred to the Senate for First Reading.
"Receiving swift, all-party approval is clear recognition for the innovative work done by all parties involved in developing this unique approach to education on-reserve in BC," said Minister Prentice. "Canada's New Government recognizes that First Nations peoples and communities must determine the needs and structures of their own education system. Passage of this legislation will make that a reality for First Nations in British Columbia who choose to participate in developing culturally-relevant, community-tailored on-reserve education programs."
The Act was developed in partnership by the Government of Canada, the Province of British Columbia and BC First Nations represented by the First Nation Education Steering Committee (FNESC). The Act will enable Canada's New Government to negotiate individual Canada–First Nation Education Jurisdiction Agreements with interested First Nations in British Columbia.
"First Nations schools in the province are committed to providing quality instruction, as well as nurturing, caring environments that reflect the values and traditions of their communities," said Christa Williams, FNESC Executive Director. "With this legislation, First Nations look forward to implementing jurisdiction as a tool to bring the highest quality of education to their children."
"First Nations in British Columbia have worked together to develop the elements of First Nations education jurisdiction, including high standards for school and teacher certification," said Nathan Matthew, Chief Negotiator for FNESC. "This Act is a historic step toward achieving our vision and will mean better education results for our children."
Millennium Scholarship Foundation distributes 53,000 bursaries worth total of $145 million
The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is pleased to announce the distribution of 53,000 bursaries, with an average value of $2,750, to students in several regions of the country. The total value of the awards, which include half of the millennium bursaries distributed annually by the Foundation, is $145 million.
"The Foundation's mandate is to improve access to post-secondary education for all Canadians," said executive director and chief executive officer, Mr. Norman Riddell. "To this end, we distribute $350 million in bursaries to students across the country each year."
The bursaries announced December 12th will be distributed as follows:
Millennium bursaries either reduce the recipient's student debt or address their unmet need, according to the agreement in place with each provincial or territorial government. These agreements also determine when the bursaries are distributed. The remaining millennium bursaries are distributed throughout the year to students in every Canadian province and territory.
Millennium access bursaries are targeted at students from groups that aretraditionally under-represented in post-secondary education, including First Nations, Inuit and Metis; students from low-income families; and others whose parents have no history of post-secondary education.
In addition to these bursaries, the Foundation distributes two other scholarships: excellence awards are distributed on the basis of merit, while World Petroleum Council Millennium Scholarships are awarded to students who specialize in studies related to the petroleum industry.
The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation is a private, independent organization created by an act of Parliament in 1998. It encourages Canadian students to strive for excellence and pursue their post-secondary studies. The Foundation distributes $350 million in the form of bursaries and scholarships each year throughout Canada. Since its inception, it has awarded approximatel 750,000 bursaries and scholarships, worth $2.2 billion, to Canadian post-secondary students.
Labour shortage prompts Saskatchewan to spend $6.9 million on new training
Saskatchewan's shortage of skilled workers is prompting the government to invest in more training.
Employment Minister Pat Atkinson has announced $6.9 million for the Saskatchewan Institute of Applied Science and Technology.
The funding is part of the government's recent $52.6-million commitment to increase training opportunities in the province.
Atkinson says the urgency to fill new jobs created by a strong economy and left vacant by retiring baby boomers will remain high for the next few years.
She says every Aboriginal and young person in the province could be trained and there would still be a labour shortage.
Enrolment at SIAST's four institutions has increased 5.8 per cent over last year and is expected to go up again with the additional programs and openings.
The training money means the Kelsey campus in Saskatoon will have a new two-year licensed practical nursing program. The program is also being started up in Biggar, while existing programs in Yorkton and Watrous will be expanded.
But Rosalee Longmoore, president of the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses, questions the logic behind that decision.
A provincial website on which health employers post job openings lists 30 vacancies for LPNs across Saskatchewan. It also shows a need for 300 registered nurses and registered psychological nurses, but there has been no funding announcement in those areas.
``It (government funding) seems a little out of synch with the facts,'' Longmoore said.