Mining education

With countless youth dropping out of school, Matawa First Nations CEO David Paul Achneepineskum wants to improve access to education and training for his people.

Monday morning Achneepineskum and Confederation College president Pat Lang signed a Memorandum of Understanding to develop new education and training opportunities for Matawa’s people, particularly with the future prospects in the budding mining sector.

Achneepineskum wants to approach the disenfranchised youth in Matawa’s nine communities and let them know there is an opportunity to go back to school and build literacy and numeracy skills and then apprenticeships down the road.

"These are the kinds of things we can talk to our young people about," he said. "We want to get our people interested in professional skills. They could be engineers. They could be environmental geologists."

Matawa wants to produce the skills that will be needed for jobs in the Ring of Fire, including hospitality, accounting and management positions.

"Any aspect of mine development, any job and skills they need, we want to make those available to them," said Achneepineskum, adding they looked to Confederation College to form a partnership because it has the background and foundation they were looking for.

"Confederation College has the resources and the programs available that help our people get that training," he said.

Achneepineskum approached the college about 18 months ago about the possibility of the partnership and Lang said the program will Matawa to drive their own agenda and be consulted with in terms of the education and training they need.

"It’s helping them to realize their own goals, their own hopes and dreams and aspirations for the youth in their communities," she said.

Not only will the agreement benefit the college by bringing in more students, but it will link them more closely with communities they serve, said Lang.

"We’ll be able to play the role we’re meant to play in terms of economic development and it is a driver for economic development across Northwestern Ontario," she said, adding the MOU with Matawa is a first for the college, but probably won’t be the last.

The first phase of the agreement is establishing a working group consisting of Matawa First Nations and Confederation members; the group will develop the protocol for how the MOU will be enacted and monitored.