Role model graduates from University of Victoria

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More than 2,400 students graduated from the University of Victoria on June 2 to 4. One of the students was 25-year-old Raven August who graduated with a BA in Leisure Service Administration. August also holds the Health Canada's National Native Role Model award which she received this year.

#"I was very surprised that I was selected for the role model award," said August. "I hold the award in high regard, especially where my family is concerned."

The awards program originated in 1984 and is held in Ottawa. Health Canada recognized the need for role models in Aboriginal communities after Mohawk Olympic gold medalist Alwin Morris was swamped with calls to speak at several Aboriginal communities across Canada. Every two years Health Canada chooses nine people from across Canada to represent the province they are from. August will represent British Columbia for the next two years.

"It is a great honor to represent the youth of British Colombia," said August. "I get to speak at schools and conferences and its been very busy."

August, who is from the Halalt First Nation on Vancouver Island grew up in Chemainus. She graduated from high school there and is the youngest of 10 children in her family. She credits her mother Josaphine August for helping her to believe she could do anything she set her mind on. Currently employed at the friendship centre in Victoria, August is taking a year away from school.

"I've been in school for the last six years and I now want to take a year off and work," she said.

She graduated from the Malspina College University in Nanaimo, with a diploma in Recreation Administration. In 1994 she completed courses towards a Bachelor of Arts Degree at the university. As an exchange student, August got to live and study in Gerzberg, Germany for a year and now speaks German fluently.

"It was interesting and exciting while I attended school there. I got to meet a lot of people. I got to learn to speak another language," she said.

August's words of wisdom to the young people are to follow their dreams and believe in themselves because anything is possible if they put their hearts and mind into it.

"My dream is to eventually become a professor at a university," she said.