 Please describe your program. I am the chair of the Northwestern Ontario Aboriginal Youth Achievement and Recognition Awards and this will be the 14th year that we're celebrating the awards this year, May 2nd. It started though as a career fair, it was called the Neganta Gay Career Fair and it's actually held in LU quite a bit but it started out as a career fair to address the issue of retention for Aboriginal youth in school. So we bring kids out from the communities to experience different career paths and explore what they can do in post-secondary education. But the career fairs kind of came deluded, there was a lot of career fairs happening, everybody started doing career fairs so that it was just too many going on at the same time. So we decided to focus on recognizing the accomplishments and the stories of Aboriginal youth which is how the awards came into conception. The age group, we recognize youth between the ages of 11 and 29 that's considered the youth for our programming. There are various categories that we go through in the awards for nominations, everything from academic to athletic to artistic. We have community leadership and volunteerism. Two of the ones that we're very, when you relate to Indigenous studies per se, we have the Sandra Cackaway Cultural Award. So we recognize youth who have showed a dedication and preservation to understanding Indigenous Nibbian culture, so whether it be their language, learning syllabics, the art of keeping tradition going, so we recognize them that way. Heritage keepers as well, so again the same thing, they do things that they're trying to carry on such as fishing, hunting, moccasin making, dog sledding, tanning, traditional arts and crafts and of course the language. So we try to recognize the youth because believe it or not there are a lot of younger youth who want to learn that, so getting them to come up and show everybody that they are trying to preserve that kind of stuff is really important to us as well. The recognition part of our awards is for anyone over the age of 29 because everybody is still youthful whether they're based on age or not. The recognition part we like to recognize community members who are going out of their way to assist youth in obtaining their goals and achieving all that stuff, so anyone like we have had school counselors, guidance counselors, people who have employed a lot of Aboriginal youth, so people who just go out of their way to recognize that Aboriginal youth sometimes need a little extra helping hand and they go out of their way to help them, so that's the recognition part of that. So what is the aim of your program? The aim of our program is just to celebrate the accomplishments of our youth in the community. So we span across Northwestern Ontario and that just doesn't mean anyone who is born in Northwestern Ontario if there's somebody who resides in Northwestern Ontario and calls it home, they're eligible in the ward as well. So we've had winners that come from as far east as James Bay area and then we have people of course in our region up to Fort Severin and then as far west as we have Kenora region and that kind of stuff, but we've had winners who have come from Manitoba but reside in Northwestern Ontario because that's their home. So that would be the extent of our audience. Why would your award program or recognition stand out from others? Well we are unique. I don't see any other award programs like ours in Northwestern Ontario. What makes ours unique however is we're not always recognizing the smartest student. We're not recognizing that student that already has a decorated portfolio of awards. We're recognizing those youth who need that extra helping hand. There could be a youth who gets recognized. We have a category called personal achievement. It could be as something as a youth that started school and was very shy when you talk and then all of a sudden you know they came out of their shell and they started participating and they started you know joining a club or a sporting event. We recognize the youth that kind of need that extra little recognition so something that's going to make them feel really proud that somebody noticed that they stood up and and took note that they did something. So it's not always about the best. It's always about those who need that extra help and that they all shine but these ones kind of appreciated a little bit more and and they could be that one award that makes a difference in their life that somebody recognized it something that I did really well and I'm going to take this and move forward with it and show other people that you know I can be a mentor to them as well. So last part of that is how do you measure the success of your program so it could be how do you guys know to keep doing this every year. So this is our 14th year and we have strong sponsorship by the community and support so we have all the school boards public school board, Catholic school board, Lakehead University, Conn College, they're all sponsor awards. We have the City of Thunder Bay, we have the Thunder Bay Police, we have private companies such as Wasea, we have Hydro One. So we have the support of the community because what happens is the day of the event we have three to four hundred people and to be up in a room like that and see all these youth come forward it just really touches everyone's heart and then they can't wait for the next year to see the new youth that are coming across the stage and I think that with the support of the community and the people who are nominating all the youth and everything like that just shows us like every year we're growing and growing so there's a huge support for our community and I think that measures our success that everybody really appreciates and enjoys that kind of event for the youth. From your perspective what is Indigenous education? From my perspective Indigenous education is being able to take content and materials and being able to present them both in a formal education and informal ways that promote success for students that may not be able to succeed in a formal you know regular kind of contest like you have like Oshki which kind of helps the people in the North came at that kind of stuff so formal informal being able to make sure that everybody can take their potential and succeed with it. That would be my view I don't work in education but so what is your vision for Indigenous education or youth over the next 10 years? I would say we continue to recognize them to be able to support them have lots of different programs and supports that they can access to achieve their goals I think it's really important different organizations come together and be able to bring those to fruition like whether because a lot of times people have great ideas but they don't have any sort of monetary backing to it or whatever so if you can get good partners together to help youth achieve and succeed I think that's the most important thing and you know if our awards can help some youth by giving them a stepping stone to go on to greater things that would be great for us as well. So what information materials resources would you need to achieve this vision aside from funding? Well funding is our main one we need to the continued support of the community so we need all our partners to be on board with us and to recognize that it's a great event and that honoring youth for accomplishments it's one night for us but for them it's something that could be effective for a lifetime there are youth who will come out meet five years later and they'll say oh I won one of your awards I was so excited and after that I did this so I mean that's a huge thing for us to see as well and we actually bring back keynote speakers of previous award winners who will talk to the youth and you know kind of be like a role model and a mentor so you know it really works for us that way so we just need the continued support of the school boards of our sponsors we need them teachers and guidance counselors to continue to nominate their youth to take note of who who could use that extra little special push in their life and that kind of stuff so the support of community is the main thing for us I would think yeah yeah it's spreading the word people word of mouth is huge so you know once one person here is voted then let other people know was there anything else you wanted to add about your program what you guys do your vision um I think for us just being able to tap into new new sponsors new partners people who've never heard of us I mean we are a big event but there are still people who haven't heard of us so I mean being able to get the word out to make it even bigger and better would be great um and if you're you know this helps in any way that helps us as well won't be great thank you thank you