Yellowknife (Oct 27/04) - The NWT is getting its own youth abroad program modeled on an initiative that debuted in Nunavut seven years ago.

With $100,000 in funding from the departments of Municipal and Community Affairs (MACA) and Education, Culture and Employment (ECE), program chair Mindy Willett, Minister of Education Charles Dent and Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs Michael McLeod launched the NWT Youth Abroad program at the Legislative Assembly, Oct. 22.

The program in Nunavut is wildly successful, with about 100 students involved since its inception in 1998.

Willett hopes to recreate that success in the territory. She'll work with a steering committee and working group on the program.

Ten students selected will start working with a mentor in their communities in January in anticipation of a six-week volunteer work placement somewhere in southern Canada in the summer of 2005.

In the second year of the program, they move into the international phase, preparing to travel with a group of Northern students to Africa to work in a community. "We're really trying to get youth to think about who they are in relation to the NWT, then nationally, then in the global community," said Willett, who was involved in Nunavut Youth Abroad.

The society hopes to select 10 youth from across the territory to start the two-year process by Christmas.