 It's pretty much seen as a high school leaving program, and I'd say the age range would be 18, 90, 20 is the most common age range. 99% of them having completed high school in Nunavut, we do have some young Inuit who we call urban Inuks who also attend the program. And we have the odd person who's outside the Nunavut territory who may be a beneficiary of a different land claim, Inuit land claim, and who also attends. We used to call it transition we don't anymore because we began to see that it's a program that stands alone in its own right. It's accredited with Algonquin College. We deliver two certificate programs here. And for many people they see it as beginning and end. That's the program they want to do. They go on to do other things. Carry out the functions of what a lot of transition programs do and that it helps people prepare for further post-secondary study in an urban setting. But many choose not to and that's fine that the program stands alone. It's similar to provide an experience, a challenging experience for young people in a supportive environment that will help them understand their world, help them understand their relationship with the rest of Canada and with other Canadians and the rest of the world. Help them understand what's going on in their world to make it what it is today. Here we get into a bit of the coursework but all young people know that the era of their grandparents or now their great grandparents lived a totally different start of life. And they see the lives there, the modern social media lives they're living today. It's like how did that happen? What happened? And so we just look to answer a lot of those questions. Even many who come from communities in Nunavut feel a bit of a disconnect because the ideas of what it means to be, what the values that go with it, the activities and traditions that go with it, have not had the chance to learn those. And so they don't feel that they belong within that because in some ways they're marginalized internally and then they're also sort of marginalized externally as a minority within Canada so it gives them an opportunity to understand how all of that came about and then a lot of the things that they do here in the program reconnects them with that so they end up having a sense of connection and a sense of identity and a sense of belonging. Unlike most post-secondary programs that are created because people see that there's a need for something or there's an opportunity for something, they create a program and then they go and look for students to take it. This one started just in the opposite way with students in a situation and we need to create something with them. So because it began within the land claims movement in the 80s and training field workers for working within the land claim organizations taking information out to communities and bringing information back. The 80s wasn't the same communications, especially with northern communities that there are today. At the end of that, students got hired. They said, okay, the training program's over but the students said we learned a lot of interesting things that we'd never heard about before. We didn't understand. And if you can keep it going, keep doing it. So we've been doing that ever since. But in doing that it was like, what do you need to learn? What's most important to you? What's the story? And at that time we just started piecing together what the story was from different sources. There was very few written materials at the time. We explained that from speeches that people made from meetings, from having people involved in the land claims movement different leaders come in to start piecing the story together of what's going on in the Arctic over time. And it's through this, we almost call it an organic development within that the program developed out of that. So in the beginning it was like a popular education program. There was no classes, courses. There was no exams. There was no extensive homework assignments. There was really popular education. But the things we studied then are still the same things we studied today. It's a much more formal education process today as an institution but it still has its roots in that, in the land claim, why there's a land claim, what it was meant to achieve and the whole history that led up to that and then what is happening now. And so that development meant that there was never real intention what's it supposed to achieve. It says what can we achieve with these young people and this situation and this Canadian story that very few people know about including themselves. And so over time we've pieced that together, built that together into what we think is a very cohesive now program. In the beginning programs often look on sort of knowledge, acquisition, understanding, look on skill development which we focus on, a lot of academic skill development. But what we've come to realize is that the major benefit, the major impact of the program is on the students' own perception of themselves and who they are within unit society, who they are within Canadian society and that sense now of connectedness, of pride, of respect for all those people who have gone before them and we often say whose shoulders they're standing on today what that story is because it's a fascinating story and it's a story full of tragedy and hardship and pain but also a story with great joy and achievements and success. So in doing that people just, they become so inspired they want to contribute, they feel they belong, they want to get engaged, they want to go back and play their role, play their part, which they're doing en masse. So it's, I guess now somebody said what's the intent? We've come to see it's that personal development which trumps everything else. They'll forget a lot of what they may have learned in different classes, they'll forget what article 13 is in the land claim, they'll remember it quick when they hear about it but those things won't have the same significance of what they carry away in their hearts about who they are and the confidence that they can carry with them anywhere now and that's the big game changer for us. In this situation, and we haven't sort of, we haven't gone proselytizing at all saying we've got the answer to something here but we've simply developed and refined over the years in working with students and using our own skill as educators and facilitators and trying to develop the best, most relevant experience possible for the students. The results for the students is that they say it's one of the best experiences they could have had. It's often a turning point for many of them. It's a fundamental, even 20 years later they'll look back on that year as a time that really set them off in a new direction. And so success, I think so. For sure, there's people out there. You'll see, I have one photo here of a reunion we did several years ago when people came back and all you see is smiling, beaming faces because they're out there doing something. They're engaged there. They've taken some control over their lives and they're doing things. And so for us to see that, they say, yeah, that's the role of education. If we got to the end of the year and the students all just wanted to walk away and said, oh, I'm glad that's done with, then what purpose would we be serving? And I think that's one of the reasons that the majority of students do stay. It's a very tough program. It's challenging. It's like an urban outward bound. This is a totally foreign environment and the stresses it can build up over time, it's exciting at first, but the stresses it build up over time are enormous. But a good 80% of them will stick it through the nine months. And it's because what they're learning is so compelling and they're doing it together, of course. They're not alone. They've got all their classmates around us, many of them live together. But also what we say is the best and worst feature of the program is we're all in it together. Nobody has an office with office hours over in another building or down the hall. It's that we're right here all the time. And so that's, you know, it's all of that relationship building and almost that family style approach to things that we think helps people get through that tough experience. One of the most common things we would hear right from the beginning, but each year when you get to graduation it's very much like a crossing the threshold moment. You know, we used to think, well, it's just a ceremony. You've done the year, fine. But it becomes a time where they reflect and they realize just what they've achieved that whole nine months of this hardship and the stress of the demands of the program. And most commonly we would hear people stand up at graduation and say, I'm no longer ashamed to say I'm an Inuk. And now I proudly wear that. And that was very, very common. It has been common all throughout from early years right till now. And a lot of times you wouldn't have known that. They don't wear it on their shoulder while they're here. You wouldn't know by watching them. They're just normal young people doing what they do, but they're carrying a lot inside. And a lot of what they're learning here is helping them figure those things out and put things right in. And we'll see people. We have a young fellow this year who we start the year off with orientation with students reading a short piece that was written by a well-known Inuk leader back in the 80s. It's called Wasteland of Nobodies. And talks about how the North and the Arctic was viewed by outsiders. And we're reading that and he's saying, we have students reflect on that just a few sentences right at the beginning. When you read this, what do you think? And there's one young fellow who was just hanging his head the whole time and he said, but isn't that who we are? And he's a star now here. He's leading the way. He's outgoing. He's into the courses. He's finding things that are just putting that image right out of his mind. And so it's those transformations that we see quite often. That's a tough one. In some sense, in some ways, and maybe some people might take exception, but in the first sense to me, there's some commonalities in what I see as education for all. That the fact that students are indigenous, the kinds of things that they should be learning is not different from students in other settings who have certain circumstances and certain histories should also be learning whether they're indigenous or not. So that right to a kind of education that allows you to have a strong sense of who you are in the culture that you're in, to me it's universal. It doesn't happen very often in our mass education system. So that's where we say, okay, how about indigenous? Because obviously the mass education system doesn't do the trick at all. I mean it's counterproductive in so many ways. So for indigenous education, I think for me it's what you see here if people can understand their story in ways, if they can look at the events of the past, if they can look at the circumstances of the past, but have a framework that allows them to see how all of those things are connected to a larger story. That they're what's been played out in their community, their family, their community, their region is their story, but it's also part of a larger story that is common to indigenous peoples everywhere. And I think to understand that commonality, to understand that there's been a certain dynamic, there's been certain structures at play over time with different actors, but pretty much the same ideas, the same principles at play. I think to understand that so that people have an understanding of the world they're living in and what's shaped their world then allows them some agency to go out and participate in that world with a new perspective. So I guess if that's indigenous education then that's what I would say would be indigenous education as being understanding who you are in all its aspects historically, currently and going forward. Our students will come with very little sense of what any First Nation group would represent or what cultures, but because they hear that First Nations, aren't they all the same? And of course that goes away through the years, through the course of studies that we do because we do a long session on indigenous government relations and the whole treaty story and how that's played out. But yeah, they start to learn and realize, you know, a fellow, a Mi'kmaq from the east coast has absolutely nothing in common with a Haida person from Haida Gwai other than they belong to a special place on the earth and they've developed a culture and a life to live happily and healthy there. I think two things. One is what I've described today, that young people have that opportunity to learn that, to learn their story in ways that, not just to learn it as an academic exercise or as one piece, but in a way that connects it all together as I've said so that they can, they understand and they develop the skills to actually go out and act upon it and participate in that story in a way that gives them confidence, in a way that gives them passion and a sense of identity. But also what I think Indigenous education, I think it has to do with the non-Indigenous population of the world of Canada in that everybody else should understand a lot of that story as well. And it's difficult to understand because every part of the country has its own story, the peoples have their own story. But again, there's those commonalities and not to lump them under one umbrella, but in some measure perhaps learn one very, very well and say this is typical of all the other groups throughout the country. But I think that there's a huge role there and we start to see a little bit of that happening now I think as a result of the cost action we see school boards in that contacting us in small ways. But I think that also is a future because that if there's going to be true reconciliation throughout the country then people need to know the stories. In the second year program we have an advanced program that's part university courses, part of our own courses and so I do a circumpolar studies course there throughout the year. And so they read about shamans in the Nets culture in Siberia and say, but that's just like us. Yeah, there's certain universalities and even some then will come to say they had it, they had it, and they had it. How come we all? And so far apart. Yeah. We would love to support the development of similar programs like this. Just last week we had several members, the Grand Chief of the Korea and Quebec with people involved in education there came and spent an afternoon and perhaps they might want to develop so we would love to support that kind of guess. I think we've seen enough now over the years that we're convinced there's something to this, it's not for everybody but it does something special for certain people in certain situations. So we'd love to help out there. We're working on a, I guess we could call it a third year option, which is one that would combine Carlton University courses with actual work placement because a lot of people and particular government placement not to learn how to be in government but to understand government. The minimum government still quite young still hasn't come close to meeting its objectives in terms of inner deployment within the government especially in the middle layers of bureaucracy. And so this would be a program that through the public administration at Carlton where they would do classes for a semester work in a government department for three months classes work in a government department classes work in a government department. So end up with a certificate in public service but also have some valuable experience within government and those placements would not be your typical co-op they would be highly mentored and would have a large reflection components built in so that people are digesting their experience and what they're learning from it and critiquing it and hopefully in that way having a sense of confidence of understanding how governments work but also a sense of confidence to do more within the minimum government and understand how they would like like that to be.