COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
What We Do
The Community Development Department was created in June of 2015 to offer holistic support to Yekooche First Nation’s youth, adults and elders. The team works together to reach out to high school students (particularly those boarding away from their families in Fort St James) to facilitate a range of formal and non-formal adult educational activities in the village and grow the community’s language and culture programming for adults.
The team connects eligible students with appropriate post-secondary opportunities on and off-reserve and coordinates training and employment opportunities for band members.
They also organize recreation programming for youth and adults in the community, and take on other short-term projects such as culture camps and website design work.
Youth Outreach
High School
- Mentoring youth
- Arranging tutoring as budgets permit
- Coordinating youth leadership activities
- Administering funds for boarding youth
- Liaising with high school teaching staff and administrators
- Facilitating regular joint student-parent-teacher meetings
- Representing the Nation on the local First Nations Education Council
Post-Secondary Services
- Assisting prospective students in navigating the post-secondary application process
- Providing support and advice to current students
- Administering funds for eligible post-secondary students
Adult Education
In the Adult Education program our focus is on helping our adult community members meet their educational goals and celebrate each successful course completion and graduate. We support learners in a variety of ways: flexible classroom hours, integrating technology into learning, providing one on one and small group activities, and developing tailored action plans to suit the unique needs of each learner.
Adult Education in Yekooche is not just formal. It extends into events like cooking class and Drivers Education, which teach life skills. By providing these types of activities we hope to build a stronger, safer community.
- Teaching high school modules
- Offering one-on-one instructional support to students
- Facilitating non-formal education programming (e.g. driver training courses, computer skills modules, women’s recreational activities, proposal writing workshops, cultural activities etc.)
- Coordinating post-secondary programming on-reserve
- Mobilizing community members to access joint community development funding
Training and Employment
- Providing employment counselling services and transition supports to community members
- Liaising with training partners to deliver services and programming
- Networking with employers to secure new employment opportunities
- Facilitating life skills and employability trainings for community members
- Coordinating Training and Employment Fair
- Administering funding for existing training programs
More Programs
Language and Culture Programming
- Developing materials for language and culture programming with adults
- Facilitating intergenerational community-wide culture camps and workshops
- Documenting, compiling and organizing elders’ knowledge
Recreational Programming
- Offering a range of programming for youth and adults, women and men
- Coordinate YFN participation in special recreational events outside Yekooche (baseball tournaments, team competitions etc.)
- Facilitating boys and girls clubs with Yekooche youth in the village
