As the youth coordinator at the Kitselas First Nation Health Centre, Gerald Nyce is a familiar face in the small town of Gitaus, BC, a small community of 400 people east of Terrace.
The role didn’t come without its challenges, however. Says Gerald, “Working with people and their feelings, handling sensitive and confidential information – it’s like night and day compared to natural resource management. I had to learn a lot on the go.”
While Gerald found that some of his career skills were transferrable, he still felt he needed more formalized training in administration and interpersonal skills. In 2017, he enrolled in the Aboriginal Health and Community Administration certificate program (AHCAP) offered at UBC through a partnership between the UBC Centre for Excellence in Indigenous Health and UBC Extended Learning. The award-winning program, taught online and in five residency weekends in Vancouver, focuses on service delivery, program administration and healthcare leadership.
The first day Gerald walked into class, he didn’t know what to expect. He soon found, however, a welcoming forum for sharing ideas and approaches on health and social issues facing First Nations communities.
One of the program’s modules, Indigenous Health and Wellness, helped Gerald learn about the application of traditional medicine. “The module opened my eyes to different ways of healing people with traditional culture and medicine.” Other modules on administration, policy and research lent themselves well to Gerald’s efforts around Kitselas Centre volunteer programs.
Gerald has his sights set on becoming a healthcare director. “I feel the experience I’m getting now is key, and the AHCAP program was so helpful. For anyone involved in First Nations health and wellness, it’s a great program to gain competencies.” Adds Gerald, “All of our communities face similar issues. We are all in this together.”
To learn more about Kitselas First Nation and the Youth Health and Wellness Centre, visit:
Gene Anne Joseph, the first librarian of First Nations heritage in BC, will receive Doctor of Laws at VIU’s June 5 convocation ceremony
NANAIMO, BC: Since childhood, Gene Anne Joseph was always happiest with a book in hand.
“My parents and family would joke that I wouldn’t move in an earthquake if I was reading,” Joseph says.
Joseph’s father had an elementary-level education in federal Indian day school and her mother attended residential school until age 16. Her parents raised 12 children.
Due to their support and encouragement, the majority of their children have a post-secondary level education.
“Throughout my life my parents were my primary inspiration as they taught all of my sisters and brothers that we were expected to work hard, be honest, and support and encourage others,” says Joseph.
In 1972, she began her post-secondary academic career as one of the few First Nations students at Langara College.
Her first summer job was copying a catalogue of a small collection for the UBC Indian Education Resource Centre. Every summer afterwards, Joseph found herself obtaining positions at libraries.
When she finished her bachelor’s degree at the University of British Columbia (UBC), a position with the BC Union Chief Resource Centre opened up, and Joseph knew this was the job for her – except they rejected her application. Unwilling to accept no for an answer, Joseph boldly wrote a letter to the President, Chief George Manuel, to explain while she didn’t have the exact qualifications they were looking for, the experience and passion she possessed made her the perfect candidate. He agreed and hired her. Joseph worked there for three years before going back to UBC to obtain her Master’s of Library Science.
During her graduate studies, Joseph collected and analyzed subject headings used by First Nations libraries in Canada to catalogue and organize information resources. This work continued in her role at the UBC Native Indian Teacher Education Program (NITEP) Resource Centre.
“I always felt I was working for First Nations people. When I saw the language used to describe First Nations, I found it ethnocentric and demeaning to us. It didn’t describe us how we describe ourselves,” she says.
Although Joseph considers herself a rather shy person, “when something is important enough, I force myself to step up.”
With no precedent to follow, Joseph carved the way by creating a new classification system that uses proper terminology used by First Nations communities. In 2005, UBC committed to protect the unique system designed by Joseph, which is now known as the First Nations House of Learning Subject Headings (FNHL-SH) and classification.
“To Indigenous librarianship, Gene Joseph is an unsung hero whose professional leadership laid a foundation for the future,” says Patricia Geddes, Student Engagement and Community Outreach Librarian at VIU. “Gene’s innovative approach to her work continues to inspire the next generation of Indigenous information professionals working towards decolonizing library services and building recognition for Indigenous knowledge systems.”
Joseph was the founding librarian of the Xwi7xwa Library at UBC, the only post-secondary Aboriginal library in Canada.
“She created an atmosphere that has continued to this day, an atmosphere that welcomed Aboriginal students and created a home-like environment for them as they adjusted to academic life in a huge institution,” says Tim Atkinson, VIU’s now-retired University Librarian.
In 1969, the federal government proposed to end the Indian Act, and First Nations communities in BC were coming together to legally stand up for Aboriginal Rights and Land Title.
“It was an exciting time politically for First Nations people,” Joseph says. “As a young woman, I decided my long-term goal was to work on Aboriginal Land Title. I wanted to do something to help First Nations – to help my people.”
In 1984, she was recruited to organize materials for the Delgamuukw v. British Columbia Supreme Court case, a landmark ruling that set a legal precedent for the court’s recognition of Aboriginal Title in Canada.
Although legally defined as Delgamuukw v. BC, Joseph intentionally refers to the trial as Delgamuukw Gisday’wa v. BC as both Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en Nations were represented on the case – a fact too often overlooked.
“For me, it’s important terminology as I have dedicated my whole life to trying to correct terminology describing First Nations issues and subjects,” she says.
The case holds significant personal meaning to Joseph as she was born in Wet’suwet’en territory in the village of Hagwilget/Tse-kya, and has close connections to both Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan peoples.
“Through her efforts and collaboration with the chiefs and lawyers, Gene brought the Delgamuukw case to life and helped make the rights of the Gitxsan and Wet’suwet’en people real in court,” says Stuart Rush, consultant at White Raven Law. “She has left a powerful legacy in what she accomplished for her people and for the land.”
Joseph went on to assist as Senior Advisor and Director of Research and Litigation Support at White Raven Law for the Haida Nation Aboriginal Title court case.
In 1991, Joseph helped establish the BC Library Association First Nations Interest Group, a professional network that holds a scholarship endowment created in her name to support Aboriginal graduate students pursuing library sciences. The funding for the scholarship originally came from the successful volunteer-run workshops for First Nations community information workers.
At the time of the first award, Joseph was one of the few First Nations librarians in Canada. Now 16 Aboriginal Gene Joseph Scholars are working as information professionals.
“I am proud the scholarship has affected so many people obtaining their master’s degree. I am proud I am no longer the only First Nations librarian in BC. It was difficult to be the only person in my field; no assistance or colleagues to understand what you are going through,” Joseph says.
Throughout her career and advocacy work, Joseph has demonstrated that education, once used as a tool for repression, can be used to empower future generations. Much of her work has revolved around ensuring First Nations history and stories are documented and acknowledged properly.
“People have such terrible misunderstandings about First Nations legal rights and place in Canadian history. If non-First Nations had knowledge of our history and culture, they would have a better perception of us.”
Joseph has been instrumental at changing that perception through her unwavering dedication and commitment to build bridges between individuals, institutions and communities for the benefit of First Nations and all Canadians.
Cauy Healy is a normal teenager, but he’s determined to accomplish something neither his parents nor his 10 siblings have done: graduate high school.
“I want to be the first one in my family to have my diploma,” said Healy. “I’ve been compared to my sisters so many times. Oh, I’m just going to ‘drop out of school.’ Oh, I’m just going to ‘drink.’ Oh, I’m just going to ‘have kids.’”
Cauy said hearing these comparisons from his own family made him more determined to graduate.
Cauy, his brothers, and sisters were often passed between their mom and dad. “The first time it happened, I didn’t understand it. I’m still trying to understand it now,” said Cauy of an early memory of moving between homes. “It felt like we were objects.”
Eventually, his family got kicked out of an apartment for delinquency on rent payments, so his mother moved out and settled with her children in Vancouver. Then his older sister left too, leaving him by himself in a basement apartment.
Thanks to a neighbor, Cauy got a job in exterior renovations then landed a room to rent in the house. “People look at me and they tell me I’m completely different from the ‘average native.’ That kind of makes me laugh. What’s the ‘average native’?” asked Cauy. “When people think of a native they think of alcohol, drugs, people on the streets, partying all the time, ‘savages’ that live on the reserve. ‘You get money from the government.’ and things like that. I don’t want to be thought about like that. I want to have the things that I want – have the house, have the family, have the good future, be able to go traveling.”
His intentions are good and he’s set to graduate next year and make decisions that will make or break him. “Honestly, before, I didn’t even think I could finish high school,” said Cauy. “But now I’m on track to finishing high school. I can go to university. I can get a job. I can travel. It’s so overwhelming that I don’t know what to pick from.”
The future looks bright for Cary, who added, “I’m going to finish high school and I’m going to get my diploma. I’m going to walk that stage!”
David Tuccaro and Marcia Trudeau-Bomberry at June 2016 convocation. Tuccarro received an honorary doctor of laws. Photos courtesy of Marcia Trudeau-Bomberry
Part of a series of People Making a Difference for National Indigenous Peoples Day
Athabasca University MBA graduate at the helm of the 2017 North American Indigenous Games
For Athabasca University MBA graduate Marcia Trudeau-Bomberry, her education will help her give back to the Indigenous community in which she was raised – a place she still calls home, with her daughters, husband, and extended family.
Marcia is from the Wikwemikong Unceded Reserve on Ontario’s Manitoulin Island. The larger community is about 7,000 people, with close to half living on the reserve. The band’s membership is an amalgamation of three tribal nations – the Odawa, Pottawottomie, and Ojibway – and is fast growing in population and business opportunities.
“Understanding economic development is an issue that is quite prevalent in First Nations communities, so to me it was a degree that was practical rather than the other option I considered, which was more research-based,” Trudeau-Bomberry said about her MBA. She appreciated the “learn it today, do it tomorrow,” practicality of the Athabasca University MBA.
“There are a lot of different areas that various First Nations across the country are interested in. They want to know how to utilize effectively not only funding that comes from government, but also creating their own sources of revenue through entrepreneurship or business development opportunities.”
Marcia was the chief executive officer at the helm of the group hosting the 8-day North American Indigenous Games (NAIG) in Ontario from July 16 to 22, 2017 which, by all accounts, was acclaimed as a tremendous success for the community.
It required a lot of sacrifice, but she was committed. Marcia made the six-hour commute to Toronto every week because she didn’t want to uproot her husband and two daughters. Marcia wants to show her children that Indigenous women do have opportunities in this country and can be whatever they choose to be. Her husband, who was completely encouraging of the decision, also wanted to show their children how parents support and nurture each other’s goals, Marcia said.
“My husband knew this was a dream job, and a really unique, once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and was very supportive of what needed to be done over the last year,” Marcia said. “I don’t think I would have been able to do the job without him, and our extended families, who helped with the girls over the past year.”
It was a peripatetic journey for Marcia to become CEO of the games. She spent her early years in Manitoulin, attending school and speaking the native language of the tribe, Anishinabemowin. She explained that the language has a strong link to the land and the natural world. It’s a connection that keeps drawing her back to her community, even as her jobs and education take her all over Canada and the United States.
One of Marcia’s AU highlights was receiving the David Tuccarro Award, a bursary from Indspire – which allowed her to do an in-residence elective course on international business and understanding legal risks hosted in Washington, D.C. Marcia credits this course with helping her to understand how to navigate different laws, treaties, and customs necessary for doing business outside of Canada.
Marcia Trudeau-Bomberry and family. From left to right: Saul Bomberry, Olive-Marie Bomberry, Marcia Trudeau Bomberry, Lauren Bomberry. Photos courtesy of Marcia Trudeau-Bomberry
NIC business student Jessie Gervais is NIC’s third business student to become a Ch’nook Scholar.
An NIC business student has been recognized as one of BC’s top Aboriginal business students. Jessie Gervais recently became a Ch’nook Scholar, the third ever NIC student to receive the honour.
“Jessie’s intelligence and focus make him a wonderful ambassador for NIC and we are so pleased to see him receive this recognition as a Ch’nook Scholar,” said Diane Naugler, NIC dean of business and applied studies.
The accomplished student has danced across stages in Canada, Spain and Mexico as a ballet performer. He began his business studies at NIC, determined to enter a career in international relations.
The Ch’nook Scholar program at UBC’s Sauder School of Business fosters leadership skills and business knowledge in Aboriginal business students. It acknowledges leadership excellence as well as students’ academic and personal achievements.
It includes a $2,000 scholarship, opportunities to attend conferences and meet industry leaders and provides professional services such as business cards and photographs. It’s also a chance to connect with other students of First Nations heritage.
“It was really interesting to meet all these other students who came from different backgrounds,” said Gervais, who is Métis and has Cree grandparents. “Some of them had grown up on reserve and others in cities. But it was encouraging to discover we all shared those same values, like protecting our environment and improving the lives of Indigenous people.”
Gervais grew up hunting and fishing with his grandfather in Prince George. He moved to Vancouver Island when he was 10, finished high school early and began training at the Royal Winnipeg Ballet. He later moved to Spain to dance professionally, followed by a four-year stint at Compañía Nacional de Danza de México and then two years at Ballet Victoria.
Gervais next decided to focus on business studies, completing his first year at NIC online. Now on his second year, Gervais is working through more than a dozen business, math and language courses (he is fluent in Spanish and French) and hopes to transfer to UBC to complete his business degree.
As well as supporting his application to the Ch’nook program, studying at NIC allowed him to complete his first-year courses and prerequisites while working, Gervais said.
Diane Naugler added students like Gervais, who return to school after time spent working or following other pursuits, represent a core group NIC students. “We see that same drive from so many of our students,” she said. “They come to NIC with valuable life experiences and clear ideas of where they want to go next, and we take great pride in helping them get there.”
For more information on NIC business courses and programs, visit www.nic.bc.ca/business.
Wanosts’a7 Lorna Williams, Lil’watul from Mount Currie BC, will be honoured with a 2018 Indspire Award for her contributions to Indigenous education. The University of Victoria Professor Emerita of Indigenous education (Curriculum and Instruction) has been living and breathing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Action on education and language since before the TRC was ever imagined. She built her career at UVic on the principle that quality education for Indigenous children must be characterized by strong cultural teachings alongside a Euro-Western education.
The Indspire Awards represent the highest honour the Indigenous community bestows upon its own people.
Working with UVic’s Faculty of Education and the Department of Linguistics, Williams co-designed the development of three degree programs in collaboration with Indigenous communities: the bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Indigenous Language Revitalization, and the Counseling in Indigenous Communities master’s degree program. She served as Canada Research Chair in Education and Linguistics at UVic and as the first director of Aboriginal Education. She also co-chaired the Task Force on Aboriginal Education, which led to the requirement that all teacher education programs in British Columbia include an Indigenous education course.
“At UVic, we created an inclusive learning environment,” Williams says. “I am most pleased to have demonstrated that a university can create an open space for Indigenous knowledge learning and languages.”
She says she still hears from former students who tell her about ways in which they have incorporated their classroom learnings into their own teaching, and faculty members tell her how they use Indigenous principles of teaching and learning in the development and teaching of their own courses.
Williams says also she sees the tangible impacts of the degree programs on communities where their graduates now work: “People are much more focused, creative and inventive in their approach to language revitalization,” she says. The next step is to develop a PhD program and share the student’s work with the world. “It’s a tremendous help to other Indigenous peoples in the world who are striving to do the same.”
Due to the legacy of colonization in the formation of Canada, Indigenous people’s knowledges, languages, histories, identities and lifeways have been designed to be invisible and education as an institution has been the primary social tool used to eradicate Indigenous languages, knowledge and identity from existence,” says Williams. “If education can be so destructive it can also serve to reverse the destruction.”
In 2017, Williams co-authored Braiding Indigenous Science with Western Science, Book 1 along with Gloria Snively, to support the indigenization of science curriculum. “The book showcases the work of our graduate students in Indigenous knowledge and serves to help teachers learn about Indigenous knowledges in the world of science.” The second book in the series will be published later this year.
Williams recovered her lost Lil’wat language with the help of Elders in her community and became an English interpreter and guide for the creation of a writing system. “I use everything I’ve had the privilege of learning throughout my life in everything I do,” she says.
Williams will receive her Indspire award on March 23 in Winnipeg. Now in its 25th year, the Indspire Awards have honoured 350 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis individuals who demonstrate outstanding achievement.
A new law program at the University of Victoria is the world’s first to combine the intensive study of both Indigenous and non-Indigenous law, enabling people to work fluently across the two realms.
Students will graduate with two professional degrees, one in Canadian Common Law (Juris Doctor or ‘JD’) and one in Indigenous Legal Orders (Juris Indigenarum Doctor or ‘JID’). Their education will benefit areas such as environmental protection, Indigenous governance, economic development, housing, child protection and education—areas where currently there is an acute lack of legal expertise to create institutions that are grounded in Indigenous peoples’ law and to build productive partnerships across the two legal systems.
“This program builds on UVic’s longstanding commitment to, and unique relationship with, the First Peoples of Canada. The foundational work for this program has been underway for several years, building on Indigenous scholarship for which UVic is known internationally,” says UVic President Jamie Cassels. “This joint-degree program is also a direct response to a call of action from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to establish Indigenous law institutes for the development, use and understanding of Indigenous Law.”
The provincial government included funding for the new program in BC Budget 2018, delivered Feb. 20, as one of several initiatives and another step in BC’s commitment to work with Indigenous peoples to build true and lasting reconciliation, anchored by the government’s commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
“We appreciate the provincial government’s support for this unique and transformative program whose graduates will be leaders in numerous fields in their communities in BC and across Canada,” says Cassels.
The JD/JID program was conceived by two of Canada’s foremost Indigenous legal experts, both of whom are at UVic: John Borrows, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Law, and Val Napoleon, Law Foundation Chair in Aboriginal Justice and Governance. Borrows describes the difference between common law and Indigenous law this way: Indigenous law looks to nature and to the land to provide principles of law and order and ways of creating peace between peoples; whereas the common law looks to old cases in libraries to decide how to act in the future.
“Indigenous law is the most vital and exciting legal work being done in the world right now,” says Napoleon, director of the Indigenous Law Research Unit. “UVic’s Indigenous Law Degree program will equip our students to take up that work at every level – local to national, private to public, and beyond. This is the very first law degree of its kind, and it is going to be a vital part of rebuilding Indigenous law to meet today’s challenges.”
The four-year JD/JID program includes mandatory field studies in Indigenous communities across Canada, introducing students to a diversity of Indigenous legal traditions. The first intake of students is being planned for September 2018, subject to approval under BC’s Degree Authorization Act.
The program will be supported and complemented by a new Indigenous Legal Lodge, to be built to house the JD/JID program and the Indigenous Law Research Unit. It will act as a national forum for critical engagement, debate, learning, public education and partnership on Indigenous legal traditions and their use, refinement, and reconstruction. The design will reflect and honour the long-standing relationships between the law school and local First Nations communities.
Senator Murray Sinclair, former judge and Chief Commissioner of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, said of the joint JD/JID program and Indigenous Legal Lodge: “They are precisely what we had hoped would follow from the report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, and they promise to form the very best of legacies: a set of initiatives that reject and reverse the pattern of denigration and neglect identified in our report, and that establish the conditions for effective action long into the future.”
April Murphy, an Adult Basic Education student at VIU Cowichan, has gone from being unable to read to her children to becoming a leader in her classes. Photo Credit: Vancouver Island University
An Adult Basic Education student, Murphy overcame multiple barriers to succeed
DUNCAN, BC: April Murphy has battled illiteracy, homelessness, and addiction and mental health challenges.
Now the 33-year-old Vancouver Island University (VIU) Cowichan Adult Basic Education (ABE) student is well on her way to getting her high school diploma, after which she plans to enter the Community Mental Health Worker certificate program so she can help others overcome similar life situations. She hopes sharing her story will inspire others to see the possibilities.
“I went from being my own worst enemy to being my own best friend,” says Murphy. “I didn’t realize how good life could be if I was good to myself. The community at VIU has been amazing throughout this process. I don’t think I would be half as successful if it weren’t for the staff here cheering me on and pushing me to do better for myself.”
Growing up in the Cowichan Valley, Murphy’s educational struggles began at an early age – she dropped out in Grade 5 without ever having learned to read.
“It felt like a burden to bring myself to school she says. “It was tough. After I dropped out, I ended up in an alternative school for six months, and then after that I was just homeless.”
Murphy lived on the streets of Victoria until she got pregnant at age 18 and returned home. After giving birth to her second son, she decided it was time she learned to read so she enrolled in literacy courses at The Reading and Writing Centre – Malaspina’s storefront literacy program in downtown Duncan.
“My oldest son was going to be in Kindergarten and I wanted to be able to read the bedtime stories the teacher sent home,” remembers the mother of four. “But I had this big block about learning because of my earlier experiences – I was so afraid of failing.”
After reaching a certain reading proficiency, Murphy was able to enrol in adult upgrading courses through what was then Malaspina University-College. She experienced a major hiccup in her educational journey after suffering from a grand mal seizure in 2013, which caused epileptic psychosis. In 2016, after struggling for years to regain her mental health, she bumped into Joanna Lord, one of her Adult Basic Education Instructors at VIU Cowichan, while out and about in the community. Lord talked her into coming back to school.
“Joanna has been awesome – she’s definitely been given a gift to inspire people to do the best they can,” says Murphy. “Summer [Crosson, another Adult Basic Education instructor] is the same, she has a way of helping you see that you can do this. All of the staff at the Cowichan Campus bring a lot of hope to people, I find it like a family network.”
Lord, who met Murphy in 2010 when she first signed up for upgrading courses, says her story is one of incredible resilience and determination.
April is the epitome of an ABE student, overcoming multiple barriers to continue her education, and acting as a role model for her children and extended family,” says Lord.
Crosson says Murphy has become a leader at VIU and she looks forward to watching her take on new leadership roles in the community.
“Her enthusiasm, kindness and sense of humour are a welcome contribution in the classroom – she contributes to a sense of teamwork and solidarity amongst her fellow students,” says Crosson.
Murphy’s next step is to take the Community Mental Health Worker program and become a shelter worker.
“We need more community support workers in the Cowichan Valley, the homeless population is only going to continue to rise,” she says. “I just want to give back to this area, which has given so much to me.”
To learn more about Adult Basic Education courses at VIU Cowichan, click here. To view this press release online, visit VIU News.
Cheri Royal of the Siksika Nation is looking forward to her new career as a flight attendant
It was a chance for adventure that made school counselor Cheri Royal decide to change careers and begin training to become a flight attendant.
Prior to this, the Siksika Nation member had been working in the social science field for most of her adult life.
“I was a school counselor, and also had my own class, ran social clubs, coached and tutored elementary and junior high students,” said Royal, a 42 year old single mother. “I have also worked with many children and families by assisting them with supports to better help themselves.”
Royal said the thought of a career change was always in the back of her mind and working for the airline industry was an enticing opportunity.
“I didn’t really consider it until now because my children are all grown up,” said Royal. “Therefore, it gave me the opportunity to pursue it with my kids’ full support. Plus, I needed a change in my life. I needed adventure!”
Royal moved to Vancouver in October of last year to begin her eight month training program and earn a Flight Attendant Diploma with the Canadian Tourism College.
She said the intense training is a compilation of many disciplines: First Aid Level 2, firefighting, self-defense, traveling with a disabled person, leadership skills and food handling, which includes how to serve food properly.
“The most exhilarating part is learning how to prepare for a crash or ditch landing. The thought of this scenario is an adrenaline rush!” said Royal. “You don’t realize the problems an FA (Flight Attendant) has to deal with in all sorts of situations. We are being trained in every area because at 38,000 feet FAs are all the passengers have for help.”
Royal said she is looking forward to the traveling and being an ambassador of the sky.
“I think we need more Natives in the air, whether it be pilots or flight attendants,” said Royal. “It’s a great industry to get into and comes with many benefits.”
Royal discussed her family background and what keeps her grounded. “I am of Blackfoot descent. I come from a close-knit family and I am very blessed to have such an amazing family,” said Royal. “I love my community and the area I grew up in. I enjoyed my time there and became very resilient because of how I was raised. Mom and dad were always traveling, and me being the youngest of five, I was always with them. My dad was a very intelligent, creative, loving, kind and humble man. He had many people that looked up to him and helped anyone in need. My mother is also very kind and gentle. If not for them and their love and support all my life, I don’t know where I’ll be. I have an older brother that I look up to now, he’s my role model my best friend. He has accomplished so much in his life and sets the bar high for me. The Siksika Nation has shaped me into who I am today. They are my people, my culture, and my identity. I enjoy Vancouver with all its’ possibilities.”
Royal will complete her training this May and is looking forward to her new career travelling the world and helping people enjoy their journey.
Graduating is a major accomplishment and there’s great joy in donning your cap and gown and receiving your parchment. It’s a day when you look back on the challenges you’ve overcome – the late nights studying, driving through storms to get to class, and remembering the people you met along the way and the fun memories you’ve made. For Tanis Flett, a graduate of the Social Work Diploma program in June of 2017, it is also proof that her hard work and determination has set her up for a successful future.
Tanis Flett is a 29 year-old, mother of four who lives in Sucker Creek First Nation with her husband. Flett was a stay-at-home mom for eight years, and when her youngest child started kindergarten she decided it was time to return to school full-time. Flett credits her husband and his support in her success. She chose to study with Northern Lakes College because of accessibility. The High Prairie Campus is only 20 minutes away from where she lives, and it was easy to travel back and forth.
During her studies at Northern Lakes College, Flett was involved with several committees including the Student Union, the Student Association, Academic Council, and the Community Education Committee. Flett appreciates the support, “I had incredible instructors. The people in the Student Association and staff at the College were great. I really appreciate their support. It was a really good four years.”
Flett was very excited and relieved when she made it to graduation day. Graduating alongside her sister, Kim Flett-Letendre was a proud moment. Flett recalled when she was attending a convocation ceremony a few years earlier and watched a Social Work student being called up to receive multiple awards. This was an awe-inspiring moment for her and she set a goal for herself to be that person one day. Her hard work paid off; on her graduation day Flett received three awards, including the Governor General’s Collegiate Bronze Medallion for highest academic achievement. “I hope that my children will see my hard work and effort as an example for themselves to succeed in life. I believe in leading by example. If you work hard, you can achieve anything you want,” she said.
Today, Flett works for the Social Development Department at Sucker Creek First Nation. In her work, Flett continues to aim high and says that her education has given her the skills and tools to handle challenging situations that life has in store.
