Katie May
LETHBRIDGE HERALD
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The University of Lethbridge hopes to attract more aboriginal students with a new mentor program aimed at First Nations, MŽtis and Inuit youth.
The program, which was launched with a $150,000-donation from Scotiabank last week, is meant to bring in aboriginal U of L alumni to act as role models to students in the university's management program, who in turn will mentor younger aboriginal junior high and high school students in Lethbridge and on the Blood Reserve.
The idea for the program sparked about three years ago as the brainchild of the faculty of management and the First Nations governance program, who thought such a support system would make the school more accessible to First Nations, MŽtis and Inuit (FNMI) students.
University President Mike Mahon said currently about 400 of the university's 9,140 students are aboriginal, and U of L hopes that number will grow in the coming years.
"Education, as we know, is a necessary tool for FNMI people to prosper and grow and the U of L is committed to ensuring these students have the opportunity, financial means and support necessary to achieve these successes," he said.
Camina Manychief is looking forward to being the student role model she never had.
The fourth-year archeology and geography student from the Blood Reserve has applied to be a mentor to younger students and expects to start next September.
"I remember growing up and thinking, 'if there were just somebody a few years older than me who can give me a little bit of a heads-up on a situation I'm in, or just someone to talk to and hang out with.' There's a lot of people who don't have that older sibling role model around and so it's important to have that to achieve anything in life, really," she said.
"It really helps to know that if you stumble or if you fall, there's going to be people behind you to lift you up and keep encouraging you to continue."
Abby Morning Bull represents about 120 students as president of the U of L Native American Students Association. She said the new mentorship program will make a huge difference to them, particularly knowing they can look up to successful aboriginal graduates.
"That for me is a huge, huge step. There's a lot of really prestigious alumni in the community and to have the opportunity to work with them and hear their experiences and hear how they overcame their own struggles to get to where they're at is such a huge gift to us," Morning Bull said.
"It's such a struggle to even get through high school, so to get to university and to hear that there's a program supporting junior and senior high school students' self-esteem to see that you can go to university, that it is possible, that you don't have to be a certain type of person to go to a post-secondary institution," she added.
The new program announcement comes less than a month after the university received a $1 million endowment fund to help MŽtis students cover the cost of their tuition.
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