{"id":23790,"date":"2023-03-17T09:00:02","date_gmt":"2023-03-17T16:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=23790"},"modified":"2023-03-20T09:11:47","modified_gmt":"2023-03-20T16:11:47","slug":"camosun-receives-500000-of-funding-for-indigenous-trades-student-support","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2023\/03\/17\/camosun-receives-500000-of-funding-for-indigenous-trades-student-support\/","title":{"rendered":"Camosun receives $500,000 of funding for Indigenous trades student support"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) has donated $500,000 to support Indigenous trades students at Camosun College. The donation will cover tuition, textbooks, and support for students on a case-by-case basis depending on their financial needs. The money will also support an additional Indigenous coordinator position at the college. On Monday, March 13, TD and Camosun College representatives held a cheque presentation at Interurban to commemorate the donation, which is designed to support up to 80 students.<\/p>\n

Susan Wilson and Larry Underwood both work as Indigenous Peoples in Trades Training coordinators at Camosun; the funding from TD, which will be spread out over three years, has allowed a third coordinator, Lorri Leonard, to join their team. Both Underwood and Wilson believe that the donation will greatly assist Indigenous students in trades throughout their time at Camosun.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Toronto-Dominion Bank is giving $500,000 of funding to Camosun College to help support Indigenous students in trades (photo by Greg Pratt\/Nexus<\/em>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe three years has been broken up into, obviously, payment plans based on the structure of their payments, but they\u2019ve committed to a coordinator for three years, as it\u2019s a critical piece to the relationship in helping our students feel supported and transitioning into the college here,\u201d says Wilson. \u201c[The money is] going to be allocated for the coordinator, books, tuition, wrap-around support, and those wrap-around supports are going to be many levels depending on the need. So, books, tuition for sure, anything above that… is based on the need of the student.\u201d<\/p>\n

Donations like this helped student Theresa Lewis complete her training at Camosun. She met Underwood and Wilson and started on a path that would eventually lead her to become the first Indigenous woman to be a Red Seal sheet metalist in BC. She says that the support from Larry and Susan, as well as financial support from donations, helped her achieve her goals.<\/p>\n

\u201cI walked into Susan and Larry\u2019s office and I just fit like a glove and it was just amazing,\u201d Lewis said at the event on the 13th. \u201cEver since then I have been super focused, super driven. It hasn\u2019t been all sunshine and rainbows, it\u2019s definitely been hard… However, with the support and funding I was able to push through the challenges and persevere.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2021, the Dennis & Phyllis Washington Foundation, in conjunction with Seaspan, donated $444,000 to be allocated towards women in trades and Indigenous students in trades over a three-year period; Underwood says that he\u2019s seen the positive outcomes that donations like these can have on a student\u2019s life, which is why he\u2019s confident about how beneficial the TD donation will be.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019ve learned with the previous donation, with the Washington Foundation, it really does help with the progression part because we had to get very creative on what supports could be available but there were times where we just said there\u2019s not much we can do,\u201d says Underwood. \u201cWhat we\u2019ve learned is that even though it was just a project off the side of our desk it was very helpful and beneficial for students returning and progressing into their trade.\u201d<\/p>\n

While there is initial funding for Indigenous students for their first year of classes, Wilson believes that\u00a0 <\/span>more funding is needed for students carrying on in their program.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s why the carry-on support through Washington and Toronto Dominion have been important,\u201d says Wilson, \u201cbecause there is very limited funds out there for trades for Indigenous learners.\u201d<\/p>\n

Underwood says that moving forward it\u2019s important to keep raising awareness.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think through events and the recognition that we\u2019ve been getting recently,\u201d says Underwood, \u201cI think it\u2019s good to have these awarenesses and conversations and just to keep moving forward and working together.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD) has donated $500,000 to support Indigenous trades students at Camosun College. The donation will cover tuition, textbooks, and support for students on a case-by-case basis depending on their financial needs. The money will also support an additional Indigenous coordinator position at the college. On Monday, March 13, TD and Camosun College representatives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":23821,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-webexclusive","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23790"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23790\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23818,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23790\/revisions\/23818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23821"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}