INUVIK
A group of students in the Sunchild Program operated by the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation has pressed all the right buttons in a video competition.

Jamie Day was one of the students who worked on an award-winning video of the Sunchild Program in Inuvik that was put together late last fall. The SCCyber E-Learning Students who participated in the video challenge were Virgina Kotokak, Aaron Nasogaluak, Danya Harrison, Leona Arey, Brittany Bernhardt, Shelley Elanik and Jamie Day. The Inuvialuit Communications Society provided two interns who helped develop the video as well. They were Jerrita Thrasher and Tom McLeod. - photo courtesy of Candace Morgan

The group has won top prize in the SCCyber competition for a video highlighting the program, spokesperson Candace Morgan said Feb. 3. She's the human resources manager for the IRC, which administers the program.

The Sunchild program is an online learning program that works with Inuvialuits who haven't graduated from high school, Morgan explained. She said they are often students who, for various reasons, didn't thrive in the traditional education model and dropped out without graduating.

It's a federally funded program that's achieved some remarkable success in the last few years.

"We've had some huge successes with the program," Morgan said enthusiastically. "We're going to have another two or three students graduating again this year."

The program, she explained, is far from a cakewalk. Prospective students are vetted carefully by the staff of the program. They're told the expectations of the instructors and are held to high standards.

Morgan said it's made clear to the students that the program has to be their top priority if they are to be successful and remain enrolled. If circumstances make that impossible, they're likely to be asked to leave.

There's room for about a dozen students per year, Morgan said, and there's typically 30 or so applicants. That's a healthy amount of competition for the program and shows that the community considers it worthwhile.

Five students worked on the video for the competition in November and two interns from the Inuvialuit Communications Society helped to edit it. It took more than a week to put it together, Morgan said.

In it the students talk about what the program has done for them.

"It's given us a second chance to complete our education," student Jamie Day said.

"There's a big difference from actually going to the high school," added student Leona Arey. "There so much more things that you can learn and you don't have to be distracted from anybody. You don't have to worry about people being bullied."

"It's easy, and you can work at your own level," said student Brittany Bernhardt.

The students found out they had won first place against teams from similar programs two weeks ago and were thrilled.

After some deliberation, the $800 prize was spent at the MacKenzie Hotel for a "wonderful meal," Morgan said.

It's the inaugural SCCyber competition, she said, so that makes the win even more impressive.