Training
I want to emphasise the teachings that our parents have taught us. This is a continuing knowledge passed down from one generation to the next. We are elders now and continue to teach. This is what ‘keeping the land’ is all about. This is why we want to build the teaching centre ― to continue to teach our youth at that centre. Elder Lucy Strang (in translation)
The primary goal of the Whitefeather Forest Initiative is to provide a range of enterprise and employment opportunities for the members of Pikangikum within the framework of our way of Keeping the Land.
Whitefeather Forest Management Corporation has provided on the job training opportunities to its staff since its inception in the areas of GIS and related mapping skills, community research, fieldwork, and office administration.
In 2005 Pikangikum developed a comprehensive training strategy to prepare our youth to meet the opportunities that will result from the Whitefeather Forest Initiative. Support is now in place to start implementing this strategy. Training opportunities are related to the Whitefeather Forest Initiative and designed to meet the needs of our youth and trainees from other First Nations with similar training needs.
Efforts also continue to develop the Teaching Centre envisioned by Elder Lucy Strang as a way of responding to what is, even now, a pressing need for teaching and training infrastructure. This Centre will be a place where youth from Pikangikum and other First Nations communities can learn about keeping the land from the Elders who are the keepers of our knowledge tradition and from the western tradition of our partners.
To learn more about our teaching and training efforts, follow the links below.
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