Kettle and Stony Point youth one step closer to achieving goals
By Colin Graf
CHIPPEWAS OF KETTLE AND STONY POINT FIRST NATION—Young people looking for summer jobs here got a boost recently from an after-school forum put on by local economic development officials.
The session offered about 30 teenagers from Kettle and Stony Point (KSP) First Nation a chance to visit with businesses looking for employees, to learn about college and university opportunities, along with free financial advice.
According to Diane Thomas, Director of Economic Development and Training for KSP, the goal of the forum was to “give that one-on-one when they can ask specific questions,” rather than just looking at employment websites or calling an office.
Phyllis George, General Manager of the Tecumseh Community Development Corporation, a small and medium-sized business-lending agency serving 10 First Nations in southwestern Ontario, explained the need to get acquire a Social Insurance Number (SIN) card and how to develop and maintain a good credit score.
“When you’re looking at even paying a small bill when you’re young, such as cell phones, if you want to buy a car, or pay off a student loan, it’s important to stay on time with payments,” she said.
Suzanne Bressette, Business Development Officer with Tecumseh Corporation, said that the agency took part in the program to help “increase the capacity development of young people in terms of having sound financial management, having goals, and to look at what steps they need to take,” to achieve their goals.
“We’re exposing them to all these things for the first time, showing them all these opportunities that they might not find in their own social circle,” explained Terese Bressette, manager of Four Winds Community Employment Services in KSP.
Since the session featured music and dinner, Bressette explained those offerings as a way to connect with the young people.
“They’ve just come off a full day of school so if we’re going to bombard them with a lot of career information, we’ll offer them good food and music too,” she said.
As this was the first time a job fair was held for the teen age group, Bressette said Four Winds hopes to convince some youths to come to the office for further help creating résumé and cover letters, and for interview skills coaching, and other employment services.
KSP Chief Jason Henry told the youths the history of First Nations shouldn’t hold them back from building a brighter future.
“You are moving on to careers and life paths that are going to change the face of Canada and the world over by your actions. Residential schools were meant to take the future away from us, so you guys are… the ones who are going to prove to Canada and whoever wanted to take that away from us that we are still here and we’re taking back the future for ourselves,” said Chief Henry.
Visiting the booths ranging from a local college and university to a trucking school, Ontario Parks, and the KSP administration, Grade 11 student Toma Bressette said the experience was valuable, with “opportunities to meet all these great people” and ”tons of opportunities” to learn about post-secondary schooling and summer jobs.
Grade 9 student Jayden Wilde came to look for her first summer job and said she was interested to find the KSP office has “lots of jobs to offer,” and found some leads for employment.
Paige Jackson, in Grade 10, says she’s looking for a job in the community administration since she is already booked to do a co-op placement there during her next school year.
Sean Hoogterp, from the Aboriginal Learning Centre at Lambton College in nearby Sarnia, attended the forum to invite First Nations students to visit the College powwow in April and to also come to an open house event.
Hoogterp said that the college features many co-op programs that provide “a bridge from education to employment” for young people.