YFNED Newsletter - July 2023

July 2023

YFNED is working towards the long-overdue, unified control of First Nations education in the Yukon.

Activities in Full Swing

Summers at YFNED are a flurry of exciting activities including:

Hiking, climbing, biking, horse-back riding, softball playing, medicine-making, food growing and preserving, bee-keeping, fly fish tying, fire-starting, skin boat building, and much more.

Thank you to our Elders, First Nation Education Advocates, Junior Advocates, MTU Wellness Workers, Nutrition Team and all the kids we work with.

July Family Feast

What a wonderful and scrumptious meal our Nutrition team put together on July 22! It was wonderful to see so many satisfied families enjoying the food. We'll be back at it on September 9 with a Back-To-School Feast at the KDCC.

Last Week at the ILC

This is our last week of running the Summer Hub at the ILC, daily from 10 am - 4 pm. Thursday, Aug 3 is the final day.

This is our second summer running the Summer Hub and we've had a great time offering things like:

tutoring
post-secondary application support
Firearms Safety course
Financial Literacy course
beading workshops
Drop-in centre for high school course work
Elders visits
cultural programming

A big thank you to all of the Elders, staff, workshop facilitators and students for another great summer.

Numeracy on the Go

The Numeracy Team wrapped up a busy school year by supporting students in multi-day Math Camps in Carcross and at high schools in Whitehorse. Math learning never takes a break though, so the Team made a quick transition to supporting high school students with their learning at the ILC for the summer session. While not helping students with their Math, the Team has also been busy developing curricular resources to support teachers and students in FNSB schools in the upcoming school year. The Math Advocates are looking forward to getting back into community schools in August!

New Logo for the
First Nation School Board

Our close partners at the First Nation School Board announced their beautiful new logo this month! Executive Director Melissa Flynn celebrated the new logo with Board Trustee Dana Tizya-Tramm and FNSB staff.

Check out happenings at the FNSB at www.fnsb.ca.

Early Years — August activities

All Indigenous families, whether registered with our program or not, are welcome to attend our drop-ins. There will be snacks, activities, beading and knitting supplies, and a chance to see our space and meet the Early Years team.

New this month is our Sensory Play Drop In on Aug 1, 8 & 22.

If you have any questions about the monthly activities, email EarlyYears@yfned.ca, call 867-667-6962 ext. 123 or check out www.yfned.ca/EarlyYears.

And remember, we have moved to 420 Range Road!

On July 8, we celebrated the new location of the Early Years here in Whitehorse with a carnival! So much fun for all our families. Here are some pictures from the event:

New staff

We would like to give the following new staff a warm welcome!

Shawna Thompson joined our Early Years team as a Trainer on July 10 and will be providing professional development to Early Years program sites.

Kai Bruce will be joining our Education Analyst team of August 3. He will be part-time until September 25th and them full-time.

Karmen Savard moved from her role as Early Years Program Assistant to a position as Early Years Visitor on July 24.

Chantal Cowan started as our Operations and Systems Coordinator on July 24 and will be our first point of contact for “in-house” IT needs.

Kendra Hotson has joined our Early Years team in Watson Lake as an Early Years Visitor on June 16.

We are always looking for great people to join our team. You can find all our job postings at yfned.ca/jobs.

UPCOMING EVENTS

August 16-17: FNEC meeting (First Nations Education Commission)

August 22: CCOE meeting (Chiefs Committee on Education)

August 22: First day of school for most Yukon schools.

September 9: Back-to-School Family Feast @ KDCC

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