NWT - When Alison DeJong became a teacher, she hoped she'd become a role model to her students. But she didn't expect that her stature in the community would earn her public recognition and a place among the "Wise Women" of NWT.

Alison DeJong, Wise Woman Award winner representing the Sahtu region, has been a teacher since 2002 at Tulita's Chief Albert Wright School, where she recently started a food and nutrition program. - photo courtesy of Alison DeJong

DeJong was chosen as the winner of the 2011 Sahtu Wise Woman Award from the Status of Women Council of NWT, along with four other female leaders from across the territory. The awards presentation is scheduled for March 8 in Yellowknife to commemorate the 100th anniversary of International Women's Day.

DeJong didn't even know she was being considered for the award until Lorraine Phaneuf, the executive director of the Status of Women Council, called earlier this month to tell her she'd won. All the attention has DeJong feeling slightly overwhelmed.

"It's a great honour," she said from Tulita, where she's lived since 2002.

"When I look at the women in the past that have received this award, they're people that really have invested their whole entire lives in the community," DeJong added. "When I look around the Sahtu I see so many very strong women leaders and role models. I've been very appreciative of the support I've received from the community."

After moving to the NWT from northern British Columbia almost nine years ago, DeJong completed her teaching practicum in Norman Wells and then moved to Tulita, where she's found her home. Apart from teaching junior and senior high school students, DeJong has been heavily involved in coaching local volleyball teams, Tulita's pentecostal church mission and the Canadian Rangers. With all that going on, DeJong acknowledged she's "too busy some days," but that's the way she likes it.

"I enjoy it and certainly have really felt included in the community. I've really had a great many opportunities by being here so because I like it so much and people have been accepting of me, I've really wanted to stay," she said.

One of those opportunities she's especially valued was the chance to take a year off to go to culinary school in British Columbia. After graduating, DeJong brought her gleaned knowledge back to Tulita's Chief Albert Wright School, where she was instrumental in setting up a food and nutrition course for high school students. This school year is the first the course has run as a regular class.

"I really felt that something practical and hands-on, like a foods program, would be of more benefit to families – specifically children and women in the community – than anything I could study at the master's level just because I see a real need for nutrition education," she said, explaining she thinks it's important to focus on supporting young women and their families.

"Some of these students already are young moms and we're wanting to support them in making healthy choices for their families."

The foods program is important to the community, DeJong believes, because it not only teaches young people basic skills like cooking and household budgeting, but it also has the potential to inspire them for the future.

"We're hoping to give students hands-on experience to be able to produce foods for themselves but at the same time we're wanting to develop their skills so if they were to leave Tulita and go into a formal culinary program, they would be walking in with confidence and knowledge," she said.

"Being here, I'm just realizing the more opportunities we can give our students to interact with other people from around the North and to experience different things, the better. It just develops them as a whole person."

Others have been receptive to DeJong's outlook, and that's what motivates her.

"I feel like I have something to offer still, so that's kept me here," she said, adding, "In many ways I feel like I'm just doing my job."

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