Anishinabek Employment and Training Services educates on financial abuse prevention and online safety
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY — Anishinabek Employment and Training Services (AETS) focused on Financial Abuse Prevention and Be Safe Online workshops during a March 19 Elders Gathering at the Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel and Conference Centre in Thunder Bay.
“There are scammers, unfortunately, out there in society and sometimes these scammers will focus on those that are vulnerable or they don’t have literacy as it relates to finances or being safe online,” says John DeGiacomo, executive director at AETS. “So, like our other training programs, we try to empower those that are taking our training and this recent event helped Elders understand more about how to surf the internet safely and not be taken in by scammers or those that are trying to financially abuse them.”
DeGiacomo says they partnered with the Thunder Bay Literacy Group, which provided the workshop to the Elders.
“They’ve helped do workshops on social media websites, on digital health, and online navigation and working with different software like Word or Excel,” DeGiacomo says. “So, we continued that relationship with the Thunder Bay Literacy Group to offer these new sessions on preventing financial abuse and being safe online. AETS is here to help with empowerment and this is an example of how not only do we empower our younger job seekers, but we’re empowering our Elders to be safe in their journey.”
Susan Korstanje, math teacher at Thunder Bay Literacy Group, delivered a Savvy Spending presentation during the morning of the workshop.
“We looked at different ways to make informed decisions about our spending, about what’s really important to us, and ways to get the most for the money we have to spend so that we have more money to do what we want with afterwards,” Korstanje says. “We looked at different ways that marketers can manipulate us to think we are getting a better deal so we are more likely to buy or kind of using psychology to get us to buy things on impulse that we might not actually choose to buy if we stop and think about it. So we’re looking at ways to kind of understand our own needs and our own reasons for buying stuff so that we can make informed decisions and really be in control of our own spending decisions rather than letting other people control us.”
Daniel Russell-Matthews, program director and trades and exams support instructor at Thunder Bay Literacy Group, says his afternoon presentation was about keeping safe online.
“The big thing is just different strategies on how is it that you recognize what are [the] scams out there that people are doing, say these new recent gift card scams, or things regarding like phishing e-mails and malware and all that sort of stuff,” Russell-Matthews says. “We just want to talk about very surface-level strategies on how to keep yourself safe out there because of how many people are trying to take advantage of people in vulnerable situations.”
Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek (BZA) Elder Tim Hardy says the workshop was very interesting and informative.
“I’m kind of a compulsive buyer, I buy anything that’s around,” Hardy says. “I’ve got to watch what I do, how I spend my money — this is worthwhile. I like the company that’s here, a bunch of Elders and other people that are very interested in learning about this stuff, too.”
AETS, which serves nine First Nations in the Northern Superior Region, including Biigtigong Nishnaabeg, BZA, Michipicoten, Netmizaaggamig Nishnaabeg, Pays Plat, and Red Rock Indian Band, also held a Virtual Financial Savvy Spending Workshop on March 21 via Zoom.