â–ş Listen Live

HomeNewsNDIT to continue First Nations internship program

NDIT to continue First Nations internship program

The federal government and Northern Development Initiative Trust (NDIT) have come to an agreement for a three years and $480,000.

The money is a 50/50 cost share between the two parties to pay the salaries for interns part of the First Nations internship program being put on by NDIT.

It’s a long-term plan to benefit all of Northern BC.

“[First Nations’] economic future is incredibly important to the economic future of the north and so when it comes to these internship programs it goes back to us looking at it and saying ‘hey, there is a need for additional capacity in these communities, there is an opportunity for rewarding careers and band administration in Northern BC’,” says NDIT CEO Joel McKay.

- Advertisement -

NDIT has a similar program called the local government internship program.

McKay says the new First Nations-oriented edition works towards fixing a major issue with the original.

“One of the gaps we identified in the [local government internship] program is we never had a host First Nation community that had an intern and we didn’t have many Indigenous interns that came through the program,” he explains.

“So why don’t we take that model of the local government program and create something for First Nations specifically.”

The First Nations program began last year as a pilot and employed three interns.

- Advertisment -
- Advertisment -
- Advertisement -

Continue Reading