 I have another guest here with us. Hold on to your seats, everyone. We're in this together. Ruby Barkley is a VIU peer support navigator for the tuition waiver program. She's a student and an advocate and she's here today to share some words about her journey with the tuition waiver program. Come on up, Ruby. Thank you. Hello, everybody. So, thank you. My name is Ruby Barkley and I am honored to be standing here in speaking with you today. I'd like to take a moment to acknowledge that we are on the unceded territory of the Sonimo people and thank them for allowing us to live, learn, and come together here today to share what I believe is the best first step I've heard in a long time. I'd like to begin by acknowledging the people I have met, not because I was in care, but because I had the opportunity to come here to VIU and to be a student. Thank you for believing in my capacity to stand tall so I can see the future I'm creating for myself and to acknowledge my students for reminding me to cherish all the moments of success and my true purpose. So, thank you. It is a true testament to what the tuition waiver program opens doors for. It is a hard truth that many people who experience care face adversity. At some point in their journey, they will face this. Their narratives are often authored by stereotypes, systems, trauma, low expectations, and marginalization. They often become viewed as case files and transition into statistics. However, it doesn't have to be that way anymore. It doesn't have to be a celebration that you survived until you were 19. And it doesn't have to be that you're signing a piece of paper to close your file, but that you're signing a piece of paper to attend post-secondary education. The biggest learning for my time here at VIU has been just that. Aside from my studies, of course, it has been my biggest learning that I have a chance to thrive and talk about future, to have a purpose and to have choice in what my story is and who I am. Well, not an easy journey because university is supposed to be hard. It has been my favorite part of my journey so far. My experience in role here at VIU has allowed me to find purpose, belonging, independence, and now help build that for other people. I am grateful to be here today as someone who is the first in my family to attend post-secondary education, to be a fourth-year student in the child and youth care program here at VIU, and to be the peer support navigator for the tuition waiver program, the first role of its kind in the province and happy to hold this title. And someone who has had the chance to write my next chapter alongside VIU's 132 other students who've also had the chance to now hold the pen in their story. VIU's model of tuition waiver demonstrates many things to me and to our community and to our province. It has taught me that this is an institution thoughtfully taking on social innovation. It is invested in their learning for their students and itself, and it is an opportunity for people with lived experience and care to change their narrative, to write their next chapter with supports in their corner. I am happy to see a government, a government that holds the title and responsibility of being the parent and the guardian and the support people to so many young people across this province. Now be the parent that has the expectation that you will go to school. Yeah, we are now talking about a future past 19. Past 19 years you have so many more years to live. We know that education is more than a credential, more than a class, and more than an opportunity, but that is a factor of resilience, a vessel for permanency, and an opportunity to build identity, community, and find your agency. I believe that this is a great first step in actualizing education for people with lived experience and care. Thank you for being a government that recognizes that we have somewhere to shine, somewhere to go, and a purpose past 19 years old. As I stand here in solidarity with my students and with the greater youth and care community, and alongside all the supports that cheer you on, I am excited to see our government take all the steps further to enhancing what it means to actualize education for youth and from government care. With programs that are inclusive and implementing the essential and innate wraparound supports, I am excited to see how you let those unfold and how you take what we are saying seriously because today is a demonstration that you have. Thank you for allowing us to aspire. Thank you for helping us navigate. Thank you for raising the bar for us to succeed, and thank you for raising us to that bar of a certificate, of a diploma, of a degree, and of a future because that's why we're here. We are here because we believe in the capacity of all of you to write your story, to thrive, and to flourish. So in solidarity with all youth and from government care, I challenge you to see your future past your 19th birthday because you do have one. Thank you.