Researching the Effects of Community Based Education and Training in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation

By Cassandra Szabo, 1st year MDP student

In addition to my work at the Atoskiwin Training and Employment Center of Excellence (ATEC) doing co-ordination, proposal writing and programming I have been working on a research project that is in partnership with ATEC and the Manitoba Research Alliance (MRA). The project's title is “Aboriginal Employment and the North: An Examination of Aboriginal Labour Training and Labor Inclusivity at the Atoskiwin Training and Employment Center (ATEC) in Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation, Manitoba, 2006-2020”. The main researchers of this project are Henk Warnar of University College of the North and Shauna MacKinnon of MRA and the University of Winnipeg.

ATEC hallway

The aim of this project is to show the stories and journeys of students that have attended ATEC. MRA has previously conducted studies examining Indigenous peoples' access and outcomes to training, education, and employment and these studies have shown that the most successful programs are ones that are small, holistic, and community based. 

Seeing as ATEC has now been in operation for 10 years it is positioned well to be used as an example of how this type of holistic and community based training functions and the specific benefits of it. ATEC has created a holistic model that takes into account all needs of the student, and it is located in the First Nation community so students do not need to leave their homes and families. The methodology of this research was decided upon with the staff at ATEC and it was decided that it should be as qualitative as possible.

My role in this research project came to fruition because I would be spending a significant amount of time on location with the students from various programs, and so I was offered the opportunity to join the project and conduct interviews as well as demographic surveys. I have learnt a lot from being involved in this project, many technical research processes and proper research protocol in a First Nation community.

When I first arrived in the beginning of May I believed I could get the interviews started and completed by June, however I realized that this was not going to happen- my first interview was not until late June. I realized the importance of making connections with individuals and building up relationships so that the students knew who I was and that they could trust me. I also realized that the researcher can be very influential in an interview, and the interviewer effect is a very real phenomenon. After listening to some of the first interviews I did, I came up with better strategies to ask questions in ways that weren’t too leading.

After conducting 25 interviews with students of all various programs operating at ATEC it is clear to see that the training center has changed the lives of all of these students in some way- and that this model does in fact produce high success rates. Many students report having higher self-esteem, many feel like they can go on to do more education and training, and many say that they would never have attempted to go to school had it not been for the people at ATEC that know them and encourage them to come to school.

Thinking out loud

By Badriyya Yusuf, 1st year MDP student

Picture this: You’re working from the 12th floor of a skyscraper in New York City, sitting behind a computer screen, sipping a steaming cup of Starbucks coffee as you collect data on climate change trajectories in Ouagadougou. Funny thing is you’ve never step foot in Ouagadougou, heck, it’s the first time you’ve ever come across the name of the capital city of Burkina Faso, but yet you are in charge of this data collection process. Don’t get me wrong, you’re a great researcher but is something amiss here? 

I came across the term desktop research quite a number of times while undertaking my field practicum this summer. It is defined as the process of gathering and analyzing information, already available in print or published on the internet. Pretty much the same process we utilize for our research papers. Online tools actually exist to make the process even easier. It is both cost effective and time efficient. It is also a methodology used by development, aid agencies and think tanks to formulate policy recommendations to be implemented in different corners of the world. However it comes with the risk of unreliable data, assumptions far different from the reality on the ground and the high probability that the intended beneficiaries will not be a part of the implementation process. Could this perhaps be among the reasons why sustainable development remains an elusive quest in many parts of the world?

Downtown Winnipeg

I recently found myself wondering about the ‘poverty trap’ as coined by Jeffrey Sachs. With so much technology currently available, collaborative knowledge sharing and money given in the form of aid and investment, why is poverty not a thing of the past? I found a partial answer in Easterly’s “The White Man’s Burden” where he says “It is a fantasy to think that the West can change complex societies with very different histories and cultures into some image of itself”. (Did you know he was actually fired from his job with the World Bank?). Anyway, what if his words do actually hold some ground? To me, Indigenous populations around the world come to mind when I reflect on that sentence. Are there perhaps not alternative pathways to sustainable development? Did you say, “Well, if there were any effective alternatives, we would have known them by now”? You could be right, but staying put in a different corner of the world could also be why we are yet to get there. I strongly believe that sustainable development needs to be homegrown. It will require putting more youth through school systems that recognize their heritage, contributions and limitations, filling their libraries with relevant books and ultimately empowering them to sit behind a computer screen right there in their villages. Now that’s what I call desktop research that provides sustainable results!