Blog

It’s less than a month until the NWT election on October 1. And just over six weeks till the federal election on October 21. It’s important to start now to find out who the candidates are, what each candidate stands for, and to decide who to vote for. Friday is the last day for candidates in each of the 19 NWT electoral districts to file their nomination papers. After Friday, we will know who… Read more.

Summer slide? It's not a new game, nor something you find in a playground. It's the brain drain that happens during the holiday months when kids are out of class. Academic skills tend to slip away during the summer if students aren't actively engaged in learning.  Math, spelling, and reading skills suffer the most. Studies have found that learning loss over the summer can be equal to as much as… Read more.

Many of us in the north took a collective deep breath at the release last week of the report of the National Inquiry into Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. The report lays out what Indigenous people and our allies have understood for a long time. Concrete and systemic change must happen for Indigenous women and girls, in fact, for all Indigenous people to enjoy the safety and security taken… Read more.

Last October, a fire destroyed the Rockhill apartment building in Yellowknife. Along with the YWCA’s GirlSpace program, 33 families lost their homes. GirlSpace lost their library of books focused on female empowerment. After the fire, community members rallied together to find ways to support the families that were displaced and to help GirlSpace get up and running again. I wasn’t sure what I… Read more.

Aurora College’s Early Learning and Childcare Diploma Program still has the 22 students it began with in September. This is “phenomenal” as college programs usually expect a 25 percent dropout rate, says Jim Arsenault, Program Head - Early Childhood, Aurora College. He describes the diploma program as “innovative and experiential.” The program has an element of self-development and is unique in… Read more.

This month I learned more about helping immigrants to Canada enjoy being outdoors in Yellowknife. For the first five days in May I was outside in the snow at the Forest and Nature School Practitioners Course. Forest and Nature School is “an outdoor learning model rooted in play, child-directed and inquiry-driven experiences.” The school model exposes students to regular and repeated sessions in… Read more.

It’s not everyday you get to dream big, but recently the Department of Education, Culture and Employment asked people to do just that: to articulate a vision for a postsecondary education system for the Northwest Territories. Several groups hosted public sessions, plus the Department sought input through an online survey. We followed the discussions with interest, attended several sessions, and… Read more.

Well this was a first! The first time I ever worked with northern youth who were relatively new to Canada. I delivered a Digital Storytelling workshop with Yellowknife youth who had roots in Syria, Palestine, United Kingdom, Kenya and Somalia. They were all new to Canada within the past three years. What an inspiring, resilient, brilliant, and fun group of young people. The NWT Literacy… Read more.

I had the good fortune to learn more about decolonization late this winter. Critics of reconciliation argue that it merely attempts to increase satisfaction with existing systems. It’s my understanding that decolonization demands that colonial systems of power and governance be dismantled with new decolonized systems created in their place. All this learning took place at the Community Leaders… Read more.

Collective impact is a social change model that brings people together to define problems and solutions for change on large-scale issues like poverty, climate change, homelessness, and gaps in education. Earlier this spring I was at the Tamarack Institute’s Collective Impact training. I learned the model is an evolving approach based on five core conditions. Common agenda Shared measurement… Read more.