Inclusion Works: Focusing on jobs for Aboriginal grads

“I was sick of poverty,” said Marshall Schuchert, an Ojibway /Odawa from Sault Ste Marie, Ont.
Schuchert was one of 100 recent college/university graduates attending Inclusion Works 10 held in Toronto at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel April 27 to 29.

Schuchert was also one of the few older graduates attending the conference, organized by the Aboriginal Resource Council.

“In my early thirties I faced up to the fact that my life was going nowhere. With my partner’s encouragement, I upgraded my basic education and then went to the University of Algoma for a business degree.”

Schuchert had to compete to win a place at the Inclusion Works conference. Four hundred students from across Canada submitted resumes, letters of support and copies of their diplomas to the council. One hundred received the coveted response. They would receive an all expense-paid trip and the opportunity to be interviewed by a team of employers from industry and the public sector for employment.

Most of the jobs were entry level. A few offers went to mature grads to enter the work force in positions that required more experience. Candidates heard about the conference through the Internet, and at their universities or colleges.

This year’s Inclusion Works 10 followed a very successful Inclusion Works 09 held last year in Vancouver.

The Aboriginal Resource Council was formed in 1998 as a non-profit organization designed to stimulate industry’s and the public sector’s interest and investment in involving Aboriginal people in the mainstream workplace.
From these early beginnings it has grown into a friendly network of more than 30 partners in various categories.

At the conference, more than 400 delegates from both the private and public sectors mixed with members of Aboriginal organizations and with the recent graduates. Their long range purpose was to involve, train and find jobs for Aboriginal youth.

“My job is to travel across Canada, meeting with mining companies to advocate and lobby them to train and give jobs to young Aboriginals in the mining industry,” explained Jason Wilson of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. He added, “Although they live and are familiar with the north, of the 300,000 mining jobs in Canada, only six per cent have gone to Aboriginals. I am working on changing this as new mines open on Aboriginal land.”

“Most of our new northern projects pass through First Nation traditional land,” said Vivian Yoandis, manager of the Diversity and Resourcing Program for Hydro Ontario. To ensure good relations with Aboriginal communities before projects get under way, a representative from Ontario Hydro makes a one-to-one visit to discuss foreseeable possible problems and concerns about building on traditional land.

“Our company finds First Nation people make a good fit in northern development,” Yoandis said. “Our programs encourage youth to work for the company. We help with using bursaries and providing co-op jobs while they are in post-secondary institutions.”

Shawn Atleo, the young and charismatic national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, expressed his hopes for the future.

“And,” he explained, “today’s young Aboriginals are the first generation who have had a chance to finish high school, and are primarily the first generation of Aboriginals to go on to higher education. Now about 49 per cent finish high school, contrasted with only 12 per cent in 1972.” He hopes that by 2026, graduation statistics of First Nation youth will parallel the national average.

The conference focused on the need to encourage the growing Native youth population, (Canada’s fastest growing demographic) to finish high school and further their education at post-secondary institutions. But with education there is a need for jobs. Conference organizers concluded that to find those jobs, there is a continuing need for partnership with the private sector, through workshops, research and understanding and involvement so that there will be inclusion rather than exclusion of Aboriginal youth.