Potential realized

First Nation high school students in British Columbia learned the art of entrepreneurship this spring with the guidance of volunteer college students and a program called Opening Doors.
Mount Currie high school students managed businesses that included Lil'wat Cinema, a T-shirt company called MC Wear and a drop-in soccer night. Students at the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), who spent 14 weeks working with the Mount Currie students, created Opening Doors. They collaborated with Advancing Canadian Entrepreneurship (ACE), a national organization that organizes college students to practice and teach others the principles and values of entrepreneurship. ACE is located on the BCIT campus.

Sam Macmillan, a marketing management major at BCIT, travelled three hours a week to work with the Mount Currie students, who live about 40 minutes north of Whistler. The Grade 12 students were initially confused as to why he and the other BCIT students were there.

"We told them we wanted to show them that there are opportunities available outside their comfort zone," Sam Macmillan said.

It took time for the high school students to realize the BCIT students were involved with Opening Doors as volunteers and that they could be trusted.

"Once that relationship was developed they started to open up a bit more," Macmillan said. Macmillan and 14 other BCIT students contributed their time to Opening Doors.
"We taught the students business skills, like how to deal with cash, inventory and things like that," he said.

For the first five weeks, groups of four to five BCIT students brainstormed ideas with the Mount Currie students. Together they developed the three businesses the high school students operated in Mount Currie during the last half of the project.

"In the last few weeks, we provided guidance," said Macmillan.

"By the end of the program, the students essentially were running the businesses by themselves."
At the conclusion of the program, the BCIT students presented the Mount Currie students cash awards based on how well they demonstrated initiative, how well they worked together, how well they faced challenges and the revenue they brought in.