On Monday, April 26, Kristy Tomkinson defended her Masters Thesis before thesis committee and her peers. She also invited others to join her by videoconference.

Champions of Change: Exploring the Outcomes of the Youth ICT Employment and Training Program in Ontario First Nations Communities

A thesis document completed by: 

Kristy Tomkinson
Capacity Development & Rural Extension program at the University of Guelph
Advisor: Jim Mahone
Chair: Helen Hambly-Odame
Committee Member: Ricardo Ramirez

From CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

The following pages contain a story about journeys. Journeys are the paths we take throughout our lives and involve the ability to make choices. Paths are divergent and dynamic, and we often cross paths, follow others, or track new footprints for our own paths. The larger story contained within these pages is about my journey as a first time researcher. This journey has given me the privilege to hear the stories of First Nations youth who have become leaders of their own personal journeys.

The main vision behind this project is to celebrate the successes and hard efforts of individuals in Ontario's rural and remote FN communities in terms of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) development. Apart from other research in ICT for Development discourse, this study focuses on the effort of local individuals who are often placed at lower levels of analysis, or simply ignored. This is a unique exploratory case study of the Youth ICT Employment and Training program, which is funded under the First Nations SchoolNet Youth Employment Strategy. This study follows the program from the institutional level (funding and policy body), to the organizational level (K-Net and delivery), to the community level (band council), and finally focusing in on the individual successes and outcomes of the program recipients or participants. In a nutshell, three realities are captured: the funder (or systems level), the organization, and the individual.

Click here for a copy of Kristy's Thesis