A future mindset: Queen’s hosts Indigenous youth interested in health sciences – Queen’s University

Jul 17 2024

They say home is where the heart is, but a unique partnership between the Weeneebayko Area Health Authority (WAHA) and Queen’s University hopes to also make home a place of education for Indigenous students pursuing careers in the health sciences.

For many people, the first move away from home is in young adulthood. For Jewel Chum, she was 13 and left her home in Moose Factory, Ontario, on the western James Bay coast, to attend Grade 9. The compulsory credits she needed were not available at her home high school and she said it was really difficult to be away from her family and friends for so long. “It hurt to leave my home just to go to school,” she says. “I really needed to be at home with my family and support systems.”

For Indigenous youth like Jewel, the first step towards pursuing a local post-secondary education may actually start with travel.

In mid-June, Jewel and 15 other young people from the Weeneebayko region visited Queen’s campus for the third annual Weeneebayko Student Summer Program. The week-long program saw them participate in various activities to orient them to what life would be like at university and introduce them to careers in the health professions. It is one of the foundational building blocks of the Weeneebayko Health Education Campus, a project to build a university health professions training program in partnership with WAHA. With the support of the Mastercard Foundation, the program will train Indigenous youth in health professions in Moosonee and coastal communities – allowing them to pursue higher education and build their careers close to home.

Read More: https://healthsci.queensu.ca/stories/feature/future-mindset-queens-hosts-indigenous-youth-interested-health-sciences