b'BUILDING BRIGHTER FUTURESI love working in this department for several reasons. Number one, it makes a difference in peoples lives, and theyre very grateful for it. It is also very rewarding because its a way for me, personally, to give back. exam time. She stopped off at the Aboriginal Resourceaddress for them to be able to send their thank-you Centre, and they told her to go home and rest, and thatletter. However, this year for the first time, students can they would contact her department and her professors.just log into our database, and they can directly upload They looked after that for her. I think its really impor- their banking information into our database and upload tant for students to know that they should connect withthe thank-you letter into the database. Our database is the Aboriginal Resource Centre. A lot of our Indigenousnow talking to the finance database, and the database students are leaving their homes and community forwill send reminders out to students about those things. the first time to further their education, and the CentreSo these two new streamlining processes are really is there to help them to connect with other Indigenousexciting. Its an advantage for students because now people and help prevent them from feeling isolated. everything is in one spot, and they just have to log into their profile in order to access those things.Based on what you might have heard from applicants, are you working on anything thatAny final thoughts?might improve or streamline the process or program in any way? I am just excited about our program! Im passionate As long as Ive been with Indspiresince 2007 whenabout the program and Indspire overall, and were very it was known as the National Aboriginal Achievementhappy to be able to be here for the students. Foundationin one of our agreements with the government, it was stipulated that students had to provide something called a post-secondary education community support letter. Typically, First Nations and Inuit students get sponsorship from their First Nations, Inuit or Mtis community, and we have always required a letter from their community that states either A) they are receiving fundingand they needed to list whether they were getting tuition, books and an allowance, or just tuition and booksor B) that they were not getting sponsorship. This was a barrier to some students because some communities do not issue letters. Some might just text or email a student to let them know that they are being sponsored again this year. We looked at that this year,Helping First Nations, Mtis and and senior leadership made the decision to no longer ask for that document. We still ask the question onInuit communities across Canada the application, because we do have a question aboutdevelop local environmental budget in the application: Have you applied for spon- champions and foster job creation sorship? Are you receiving any sponsorship and what isin the green economy. the amount of that sponsorship? But we dont require the document this year, and thats a barrier that weve removed for them, based on feedback.Indigenous Training Programs to help to secure meaningful In addition to that, in the past we would email theenvironmental employment.student to let them know that their application was successful, and we would provide a link for them toLearn more at eco.ca/beahrupload their banking information, and a sponsor email 2022indspiration61'