Month: October 2011

On Monday, Sept 12, the eMentoring program held a community lead orientation at our eHealth office in Vancouver. This was a great opportunity for all of our awesome community leads to meet and share their experiences with one another. Aboriginal eMentoring BC is a province wide program and there are 5 community leads located in different areas throughout the province. The community leads are responsible for mentee recruitment, promoting the eMentoring program, meeting with Chief & council, parents, teachers and answering general questions about the program.

The purpose of the day long orientation was for everyone to meet one another, discuss their experiences in the project and leave with resources to help them during recruitment. Throughout the orientation, a bunch of topics were covered ranging from developing agreements with partnering communities, overview of the mentee curriculum, how to match mentors and mentees, recruitment successes and challenges, the research aspect of this project and more. Overall, everyone had a great time and we all learned a lot from each other!

Our leads and the communities they represent include:

Diane Anthony – Adams Lake Band

Luwana Louis – Sto:lo Nation

Chris Alexander – Okanagan School District (SD23) and Westbank First Nation

Elizabeth Nicholas – Akisq’nuk Band

Nahannee Gillett – Urban areas/Surrey school district (SD36)

The eMentoring team has partnered with the Indigenous Leadership Development Institute to develop an online Aboriginal Cultural Awareness course that all eMentors will take before they are paired with their mentees.

The course is self-paced and based on previous knowledge of Aboriginal people in Canada. It will take between 1-4 hours and consists of the following four modules:

~ The Important of Culture and Cultural Awareness
~ Aboriginal Peoples of Canada
~ Canadian History from an Aboriginal Perspective
~ Past, Present and Future Challenges for Aboriginal Peoples

After each module, mentors must score 100% on a multiple choice test before moving to the next module. This is meant to be an introductory course that will facilitate cultural competency in eMentoring relationships. Mentors will also attend a mandatory orientation session that is scheduled for Saturday October 15th, 2011.