Northern Youth Abroad students learn culinary, carpentry skills at Ottawa Campus
Posted on Thursday, July 27th, 2023
For three weeks in July, Northern youth aged 16-22 from the Northwest Territories and Nunavut travel to the Ottawa Campus to build career and life skills in the Northern Youth Abroad (NYA) Next program. This year, 21 participants are living on campus while they volunteer in the community, receive individual career coaching, and develop public speaking and presentation skills. They leave the program with high school credits, career preparedness, and the experience of living on a college campus.
NYA Next participants travel from various communities in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut.
New for 2023 is a culinary workshop where participants are taught cooking basics at Algonquin College’s culinary labs.
“This has been a fun group. We try to keep the learning basic, giving the participants a chance to get comfortable in the kitchen,” said Katie Ardington, Culinary Arts Instructor at Algonquin College. “In the first class we made corn chips where the students learned how to use a deep fryer and make fresh salsa and guacamole. The second week we made warm chocolate chip cookies, which was a hit. This final week we did savoury ricotta pancakes, where they made fresh cheese/ricotta.”
Verna Kalluk holds up a picture frame she constructed in the NYA Next carpentry course.
Each NYA Next participant develops a personal learning project to focus on an area of interest for the duration of the program. One participant who particularly enjoyed the culinary workshop is Verna Kalluk from Baker Lake, Nvt. Kalluk’s dream is to open a café in her community which sells coffee, baked goods, soups and sandwiches, as well as hand-crafted hats, jackets and jewelry. Kalluk, which means “thunder” in Inuktitut, will appropriately name her shop Thunderous Café.
The Algonquin Centre for Construction Excellence hosts a three-week construction trades course for NYA Next, where participants learn carpentry techniques to construct picture frames, stools and dog houses. Participants build their carpentry projects step-by-step, from using a table saw to cut the wood to applying the final coat of paint.
Tafadzwa Mufandaedza proudly shows off the doghouse she constructed.
The carpentry course has been a highlight of the program for Tafadzwa Mufandaedza from Yellowknife, N.W.T. Referring to her “dream that never dies,” Mufandaedza looks forward to applying her construction skills in a future career with the Canadian Armed Forces.
Also enjoying the construction trades component is Kym Morgan from Sanirajak, Nvt. Morgan hopes to turn his experience as a hockey forward into a coach for junior and minor leagues, as well as train to become a medic with the Royal Canadian Air Force.
Kym Morgan (R) works with another participant on their carpentry project. Image courtesy of Northern Youth Abroad.
In their free time, participants have an opportunity to visit Ottawa’s summer festivals and attractions. The Ottawa Lebanese Festival was a favourite among the youth, as were the many cuisines on offer at Ottawa Asian Fest. Funhaven was another popular destination, where participant Aranxa Tunguaq of Baker Lake, Nvt., played laser tag and had fun taking pictures with her new friends in the program.
NYA Next participants are at the Ottawa Campus until July 31. Visit the NYA website to learn more about this and other program offerings in Canada and internationally.