SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - The future leaders of the Northwest Territories - including a sizable showing of youth from Yellowknife, Ndilo and Dettah - converged upon the Chief Drygeese Conference Centre in Dettah last week for the first-ever Aboriginal Youth Economic Development Workshop.

From left, Jarrette Crookedhand and Ryan Charlo, both of Dettah, participate in a round table discussion at the inaugural Aboriginal Youth Economic Development Workshop held in their community last week. - Guy Quenneville/NNSL photo

Anchored by the tagline "Are you ready to build a nation" the event, organized by the Deton'Cho Corporation, brought together approximately 50 students from across the NWT to trade ideas on how the territory's aboriginal communities can effectively plan for economic development.

As Cody Erasmus, an economic development clerk with the Yellowknife-based corporation and an organizer of the workshop put it, the aim of the four-day conference was "to inspire the youth and set their minds on fire to become (agents of) economic development. Whatever they want to be - just not to give up on their goals and dreams."

Speakers at the event included Premier Floyd Roland, former Yellowknives Dene First Nation Chief Fred Sangris (who spoke about the changes that have occurred to the traditional economy) and Roy Shields, chief executive officer of Denesoline Corporation.

But during a round-table discussion on Wednesday - in which attendees were asked to identify what talk in particular stuck with them - it quickly became clear an address by Dr. Manley A. Begay, Jr., a member of the Navajo Nation in the southwestern United States, had made an impression.

"He talked to us about nation-building," Dene youth Pascal Erasmus, 15, said of Begay, Jr. "He showed us a bunch of examples of these really good-looking reserves around Canada and the U.S. Those looked really nice and I said, 'Us here, we could look like that one day.'"

While Pascal doesn't fancy himself a would-be entrepreneur - he wants to enter into "some sort of social or clinical health type of work" - he heard a lot of advice that other, more business-minded attendees would certainly find helpful, he said.

"A lot of these people seem to be trying to get into that sort of field ... I'd like to see some of these people take this information and run with it."

Attendees, who came from 20 different NWT communities, stayed nights at the Deton'Cho Training Centre, just one km away from Dettah.

Lunches were catered by Ndilo-based Bouwa Whee Catering.

Several prizes were also offered, including an iPod and a Nintendo Wii gaming system. A traditional hand games tournament was held on Wednesday, followed by a community feast on Thursday.

According to Cody, the conference went so well that "We've (already) got requests for another one to happen next year."

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