Are you an Inuit student considering post-secondary education (college or university)?
Heather Ochalski, a leader in Inuit education, is hosting an online workshop in collaboration with Inuit Futures to introduce Inuit students in grades 8-12 to the different streams and options of post-secondary education. This event will address various challenges that have been experienced by other Inuit students and share how they overcame them and how they succeeded in their post-secondary education programs. Participants will also learn about available funding post-secondary education opportunities for Inuit students.
By the end of this workshop Inuit students and their support systems will:
Have an idea of where they can go to select their post-secondary institution.
Know the difference between college and university programs including blended programs.
Know where to access funding depending on which land claim region they belong to and where they live in Canada (Nunatsiavut, Nunavik, Nunavut, Inuvialuit Settlement Region or Urban centres).
Be prepared for potential challenges and how they can overcome them (e.g., Indigenous resource centres, libraries, and other academic support systems).
This event will include a Q&A session with Heather Ochalski and three Inuit students at the undergraduate, Masters, and PhD levels.
We welcome teachers, students, families, parents and all other student support systems to attend! Teachers and their classes are also welcome to join.
Please note that the workshop portion of this event will be recorded and made available online afterwards, but no attendees will be visible on the recording. The Q&A portion will not be recorded.
More about Heather:
Heather Ochalski is a resident of Ottawa originally from Baker Lake, Nunavut. She has an Honours B.A. in Psychology with a minor in Sociology and a Master of Arts in Education Degree from the University of Ottawa. Using Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit as her epistemological framework, her Masters study titled, “Inuit Students' Journeys from High School into Post-Secondary Education” narrates the experiences of six Inuit students' education journeys and explores how they navigated cultural tensions between Western and Inuit worldviews to successfully reach and complete their post-secondary education.
She also holds Summer Research Institute certificates in Knowledge Mobilization: Affecting Change for Program and Policy Development as well as in Community-Based Participatory Action Research from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the University of Alberta and is a Laureate of the 2013 Arctic Inspiration Prize for the implementation of the National Strategy on Inuit Education. Among her many accomplishments is a publication on Inuit child welfare in Volume 5 of the Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada: “Canada’s Residential Schools: The Legacy”.
She is currently the Early Years Director at Inuuqatigiit Centre for Inuit Children, Youth, and Families in Ottawa where she continues to build on Inuit pedagogical approaches and capacity in Inuit Education.