RED ROCK — Right now it may not look like a new house, but that’s what 19 Nipigon-Red Rock High School students will have completed by the end of June.
The secondary school’s new Indigenous Skilled Trades Training Program launched in mid-October with a project to construct a new home that will be someone’s abode in Ginoogaming First Nation.
The project, akin to one that wrapped at a Thunder Bay high school earlier this year, is getting support from Matawa First Nations Management, Red Rock Indian Band, Biinjitiwaabik Zaaging Anishinaabek (Rocky Bay), Ginoogaming First Nation and other partners.
It provides First Nations youth at Nip-Rock High with hands-on trades training and certifications in carpentry, electrical work and more while they earn high school credits.
The students, in Grades 9-12, are learning “a lot of the hands-on skills in the trades,” educator Tim Aylward said Tuesday.
“They’re learning many different power tools. They’re learning the skills to use a tape measure.
“And we’re doing it old school,” he continued. “We’re not using air nailers – we’re using the old hammer because it’s a good skill to learn, right?
Smart Modular Canada “has been an amazing partner for us, giving us all the material,” he said.
The finished product will be 14 feet wide by 40 feet long with a patio, which makes it a bit different from the Indigenous house-building project last school year at Hammarskjold High School in Thunder Bay, he said.
“It’s nice that the students are here from these places and they’re actually building a house that’s going to go to one of their communities,” Aylward said.
Another thing that makes the program a success is the general impact on the students' education.
“These students are attending regularly and their grades are improving,” said Ted Wawia, a Red Rock Indian Band councillor and former teacher at Nip-Rock High.
In building healthy, strong communities, Wawia said, “we’re building healthy, strong children.”
Simon McKay is one student who has enjoyed the project.
“I really like the hands-on work and everything that it brings,” he said.
Knowing the work goes toward providing a new home for someone in Ginoogaming “feels really awesome,” he said.
“I like the opportunity they gave me to be in this class,” said Erika Bottle, another student.
The project “means a lot to the school and to the community,” said Lisa MacLeod, Nip-Rock High’s vice-principal.
“We’re really grateful to have this opportunity to connect our youth with this experience where they’re going to get the hands-on skills and also some education connected to housing, which is a really important issue.
“It’s really awesome to see the youth here, and also to have the community partners that we’re working together with.”
