Program promotes positive change
Young people in Cape Dorset learn coping skills and how to deal with frustration
Miranda Scotland
Northern News Services
Published Monday, May 5, 2014
KINNGAIT/CAPE DORSET
Elsie Welch may not be from Cape Dorset but everyone in the community knows her name.
She's been visiting for the past three years to deliver a one-month program aimed at building students' character, confidence and integrity.
"The main message is every person is unique and every person has gifts and abilities and they can succeed," said Welch.
The HEROES program was developed by Impact Society, a non-profit based in Alberta. Welch was the first to introduce it in Nunavut. Since then, RCMP members have delivered the program to youth in Taloyoak.
For the past month, Welch has worked with Grade 7 and 8 students at Peter Piseolak School to help them learn coping skills and strategies for when they're frustrated. She's been teaching the course with Wendy Joanasie, MLA David Joanasie's mother, and the motto they want students to remember is Stop. Think. Choose.
"This year, when I was back in the school, some of the kids that took (the program) a couple years ago came up to me and said, 'STC Elsie, STC,'" recalled Welch. "I do notice a positive change in those that have taken it. I see more responsibility. Some are in the course but their heart is not in the course and sometimes those kids aren't making good decisions. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink."
Principal Mike Soares said the school was reluctant to let Welch deliver the program because she is a Pentecostal minister. But after making her jump through hoops and getting approval from the deputy minister of education, she was allowed.
"We did our homework," said Soares. "A lot of people from the south when they come here it's just like the visitors lining up at the cages at the zoo ... Well everyone in town here knows Elsie's name and knows that she is a wonderful person doing good things for the school."
Soares said he's noticed a positive change in some of his students as a result of the program. However, time will reveal the real impact, he added.
"We measure things in millimeters, we don't even measure things in baby steps," he said. "I have some strong feelings about teaching and I think what's happening in Nunavut right now is more positive than what is happening last year. And that's not about the HEROES program, that's about education generally."
- with files from Laura Busch
