 Hello, my name is Kelly Shopland. I'm a member of Comox First Nation and the director of Aboriginal Education at North Island College on Vancouver Island. I'll be talking about the Aboriginal Leadership Certificate Program. This is the first year we've offered this one-year certificate program throughout the North Island College region. The program was developed using a community-based approach where NIC held a series of community consultations with First Nations representatives and leaders from different communities that identified the vision, the outcomes, the delivery and the courses that would make up the certificate. And through these sessions it was determined that a successful and respectful program would support student growth in cultural leadership, management, finance, while incorporating Western governance systems as well as recognizing and celebrating Indigenous ways of governance. So the program itself, it is designed to give students the practical skills and knowledge that is needed to work at management and administration levels in Aboriginal governance and organizations. The delivery model, it's a hybrid model. So it's delivered online so that students throughout our whole region, throughout the North Island are able to participate, but it does incorporate face-to-face components where the students come together for two-day intensives and those intensives, the location changes throughout our region and into different communities to incorporate that unique local knowledge. Being that this is the first offering of the program, our success measures, we haven't had graduates yet, but really what we're looking at right now is the personal growth of students and the development of skill sets that are going to prepare students to work in leadership positions, whether that's within an organization or cultural leadership within their communities. The goal is really to prepare workers for executive level positions within Aboriginal organizations and that was what was identified by community as a real need within our region. Another initiative that we have been working on at North Island College over the last few years is the introduction of provincial ABE, so adult basic education, upgrading courses in Indigenous language and we have been offering, we have three different Kwakwala courses and two new channel language courses that we have been offering throughout our campuses. I'll speak to the Kwakwala classes first. So those were introduced in the Port Hardy region about three years ago and it's really successful, huge community intake and they're immersion-based classes so the goal of the class is to speak as much Kwakwala and as little English in each session as possible. So starting with an introductory course and this year we've introduced an orthography course to introduce the reading and writing systems. The courses, because they are ABE courses, they are tuition-free for students so access is readily available. The Kwakwala courses are articulated so that they can be used towards adult graduation diploma credits. To give students the opportunity to take a course outside the math and sciences, something that's really culturally relevant, local and that they can relate to. Feedback from students around these courses is that for some students, this is the first opportunity that they've had to take a class that they really relate to when they come to a post-secondary or into any educational institute, a class that really means something to them and that they feel at home at. So in Mount Waddington in our Port Hardy region the language courses have expanded into what we're calling the Awinakola program which is a cohort with land-based learning. So they're taking their English upgrading their math upgrading and their Kwakwala classes and actually going out into the land onto the land to do cultural activities while learning that subject matter. This semester we offered the Kwakwala courses for the first time at the Comox Valley and Campbell River classes and they're taught in a co-teaching model. So we have our instructor who acts as a facilitator and has language skills but they're also bringing in other fluent speakers from the community, elders and emerging speakers, to support the small group work and the immersion content and goals that the class has. They've been really great classes. We've seen almost some full families come to the class of all ages and taking the activities and the skill sets that they're learning to practice language and taking that back into their homes and into their communities to work as a family on that language revitalization and proficiency. From my perspective, Indigenous education at North Island College is community driven. So when we look at what initiatives we would like to see the college move forward with or what kind of programs we'd like to offer or develop, our first thing we do is we turn to community for their input and their guidance. It's important that it's relevant and meaningful to the learners and recognizes various ways of knowing and perspectives and as much as possible. We like our learning outcomes and programs to be local and land-based if possible. But as I mentioned, really our first step is to work with our partners in community. We have an Aboriginal Education Council as well as regional advisory committees that guide all of the work that we do in Aboriginal Education here at North Island College. They identify the services they would like to see for students, things like our elders and residents and our Aboriginal advisors. They indicate the development of programs such as the language courses and the Aboriginal leadership. Those were all community-led initiatives. We were approached by community that there was a need, that there was a desire, and so we move forward from there. So that's how I view Indigenous education is really that it's the ownership of our First Nations communities within the region that guide the college on how we should move forward with incorporating new classes and programs and services for students. Over the next 10 years, I think our Indigenous education, I'd like to see a growth in the integration of language and culture throughout curriculum. They go hand in hand and I think continuing to make programming more accessible. So continuing with our in-community models, bringing education to our remote communities and recognizing the huge impact that that makes. Again, working with our council to identify the needs and really listening to what they bring forward, what they would like to see for the community. So that education is community-driven and education is reflective of what's needed within the regions and for individual communities. So within the next 10 years, I think I would turn to the communities to ask them where they would see it in the next 10 years and then work from there moving forward.