Wuttunee benefits from international experience

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Last fall, Melissa Wuttunee left behind her family, friends and home on Red Pheasant First Nation to spend six months on the other side of the world.

Wuttunee was one of nine young Canadians selected to take part in the Young Professionals International initiative, a program co-ordinated by the federal Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade designed to give participants exposure to foreign cultures and international employment experience.

From the end of September 2005 until the end of March 2006, Wuttunee lived in Rotorua, located in the heart of New Zealand's North Island.

Now that she's back in Canada, Wuttunee said she will use the experiences gained during her internship to benefit Red Pheasant.

"I have learned much and will apply much when I get back to my community, that I am very sure of," said 31-year old Wuttunee.

Wuttunee had dreamed of travelling to New Zealand since her eldest brother, Sheldon, made the trip three years ago as a participant in the Partnership of Peoples Program. But her longing to see the island country was tempered by her belief that she wouldn't be able to be that far away from her family, especially her son.

"I was jumping all over the place when I found out that I had been selected," she said. "I have so much to be thankful for and consider myself blessed. It shouldn't be me getting recognition. It is my son, my mother, my father and my family. Without their support I wouldn't be where I am today."

Wuttunee said she accepted this internship because of her 14-year-old son, Michael Keith Jordan Wuttunee.

"He has been the number one reason in my life to accomplish and achieve. I wanted to show my son how important it is to achieve your dreams," she said. "Having him at such a young age, I never even thought I would graduate from high school."

Not only did she graduate, but she also earned a scholarship as well as an award for highest academic achievement.

"I look at that award as an award for being a single teenage mother who accomplished a very hard goal on her own," she said. "I had obstacles front, back and centre, but somehow I knew that I needed to do things for my son. I had a child to make a life for and to make him proud of me."

At the age of 16, Wuttunee became pregnant. She married her son's father while still in Grade 10. They separated when she was in Gade 12 and were divorced during her first year of university.

"I remember being so embarrassed going to the bank to cash my government cheque and feeling totally degraded, like everyone was staring, especially in North Battleford because that is the stigma attached to all Indians anyway," said Wuttunee. "I made a promise to myself that I would do everything in my power to turn the tables on that feeling as soon as I finished high school."

Wuttunee has kept that promise. She recently graduated from the Saskatchewan Indian Institute of Technologies with a diploma in management studies and plans to return to the University of Saskatchewan to obtain a masters in business administration in the fall. Her long-term goal is to obtain her post-MBA certificate at McGill within the next two to three years.

Upon her arrival in Rotorua, Melissa Wuttunee was supposed to be placed with the Te Arawa Trust Board to develop and create a human resource manual but ended up moving to the Tuwharetoa Ki Kawerau Trust Board where she completed a quality management systems document manual.

Trust boards are organizations representing various Maori tribes and are responsible for administering payments received for public use of Maori lands and providing services to the Maori people.

Wuttunee also completed an audit for Tuwharetoa Ki Kawerau Health, Education and Social Services (TKKHESS) in the area of forestry, an industry she previously knew very little about.

"I researched, developed, and amalgamated a profiler and quality management manual to reflect TKKHESS's past, current, and futue development in the area of forestry, training and employment."

Her other duties included completing an economic and statistical analysis of numerous factors impacting on the TKKHESS Private Training Institute, the Maori peoples of the Kawerau District, as well as local organizations in the forestry industry. She also researched and analyzed other private training establishments offering similar training programs to develop a final quality management document.

Although Wuttunee had never been to New Zealand before her internship began, she didn't have much trouble finding a place to stay. She met a Maori family through her adopted cousin and they told her she could stay with them as long as needed.

The Kohunui's-Aubrey and Hariata and their children Lisa and Jason-became like a second family to Wuttunee. In January they held a ceremony in which they adopted her into the family.

"I am deeply honoured to have been asked by them to be their daughter," said Wuttunee. "I felt so cared for by Aub and Hari, as they felt like a mom and dad immediately."

Wuttunee admits that the most important education she has gained from this international experience was not from a book or from her employment but is something she said she will "carry closest to my heart forever."

"It is the value of Mana (the Maori word for integrity), pride," she said. "I have borrowed the term Mana from the Maori because it stands for something I think we all desire and should hold at highest rank in our day to day lives in respect to where we come from as a nation and as a people."

Prior to travelling overseas, Wuttunee already understood the importance of family but she admits that now she has an even greater appreciation of family and values.

"I have learned that family is of the utmost importance. Without that,connections are really nothing. I truly believe that pride in who you are and where you come from in respect to your people, family, and your community are the rootsof your integrity. I have learned how to live for a short time so far away from all of that and to adapt, but I understand the saying that everyone needs to go back to his or her roots in order to feel complete," she said.

"I learned that culture is something that we must educate our young with from the time that they are born. To also walk in pride and not in shame of whom they are. A child should know their history and family genealogy as soon as they are old enough to understand. We must begin to breed our children to know who they are."

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Wuttunee agrees that starting out as a single mom at such a young age was very trying at times but stresses that she never gave up.

"I truly believe that my son is what got me to keep going," she said.

"For all you young mothers out there don't think that having a baby is a detriment and that you can't be all you can be because you can. If at times you feel that society and people are frowning down upon you because of your hardships, just focus on your future and always remember that you're not going to be there forever. Remember that baby is going to look up to you for the rest of your lives. You are all that baby has to mould themselves into someone strong and sturdy," said Wuttunee.

"When times get tough, just look at that child and remember that you are all they have in this world and you are the most important person to them in the world. What you teach that child and what you stand for is what your child will become one day."