Cree students celebrate graduation from award-winning Iyeskuwiiu program at John Abbott College

A group of Cree students is graduating from a special program at John Abbott College in Saint-Anne-de-Bellevue, the third and largest cohort to complete the year-long course.

The Iyeskuwiiu Springboard to DCS program is a collaboration between the Cree School Board (CSB) and John Abbott College and is designed for Cree students to prepare them for post-secondary education.

“This is what we call a transition program or a Tremplin DEC,” Kim Tekakwitha Martin, dean of Indigenous education at the college, explained. “It’s a one-year program that helps students to acquire prerequisites that they might not have had a chance to obtain in high school” because of a lack of resources, like teachers.

This course is mostly done online in the students’ home communities in the north, so students can remain with family and take courses to learn more about their cultures.

“At the same time they they’re also learning to keep up with the pace of what they will face, if they do decide to continue their education at John Abbott or another CEGEP,” Tekakwitha Martin told Global News.

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The course started with 20 students and some who graduated say it wasn’t easy. One who managed to make it was 18-year-old Katie Gilpin from Wemindji, who gave birth while taking the course.

“I would cry all the time,” she recalled. “So overwhelming. It was frustrating, too, because I had to watch the kid during my classes and I couldn’t listen sometimes, and I couldn’t stay on track.”

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She hasn’t decided what she’ll do yet or what her next steps will be. It was tough, too, for 25-year-old Christina Pachano from Chisasibi, who said she thought about quitting.

Now she has plans to continue her education, maybe at John Abbott.

“But, I have to save up some money first because it’s expensive down here,” she laughed, referring to Montreal.

One CSB official said steps are being taken to start post-secondary options for students within the communities, though.

“So there will be options for students who want to stay home to pursue a nursing program, to pursue a bachelor in social sciences,” she said.

Meanwhile, Pachano, the valedictorian, is just glad she managed to complete this program, which she says has boosted her confidence.

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