Honesty, Open Mindedness and Willingness (HOW) Program
Aboriginal Front Door Society
Project Amount: $24,600

The Honesty, Open Mindedness and Willingness (HOW) program is provided to women with substance addictions in Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. The HOW program involves individual counselling sessions, group sharing circle work, traditional healing ceremonies and the development of personal wellness & learning plans. The program is intended to move women from a place of denial, predisposed thinking and reluctance to a place of honesty, open mindedness and willingness.

BladeRunners
Aboriginal Community Career Employment Services Society (ACCESS)
Project Amount: $90,612

BladeRunners provides urban Aboriginal youth with construction trades training and a variety of support services in preparation and during various work placement opportunities. The two-week orientation consists of life skills, employment readiness and certified health and safety training.  Participants receive hot meals while in training in addition to being provided rain gear, work clothing and basic safety equipment.  Financial assistance for housing needs, provision of bus tickets and 24 hour access to counsellors will be provided in order to ensure retention of the participants and an easier transition into a workplace.

Essential Skills for Aboriginal Futures DVD
Aboriginal Community Career Employment Services Society (ACCESS)
Project Amount: $40,000 

ACCESS will create a DVD and audio documentary of the successes of their Essential Skills for Aboriginal Futures, (ESAF) program.  The documentary will cover individual stories of participants in enhancing essential workplace skills, securing job security and building better lives for themselves and their families.  The documentary will be distributed to providers of the program in Metro Vancouver, provincial Ministries, potential funding partners and local media outlets.

Aboriginal Youth Media Team Development
Knowledgeable Aboriginal Youth Association
Project Amount: $45,737 

The Aboriginal Youth Media Team Development provides an innovative approach that puts Aboriginal Youth to work with the support of culturally appropriate program development and delivery.  This project brings private and public partners together who are interested in supporting experiential learning opportunities for Aboriginal youth to develop and then apply life skills, writing and technology training to practical situations.

Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity Training
Kla-How-Eya Aboriginal Centre of Surrey Aboriginal Cultural Society (SACS)
Project Amount: $60,841 

The Cultural Awareness and Sensitivity Project at Kla-How-Eya will provide cultural self-awareness workshops for Aboriginal clients, as well as cultural sensitivity training for internal staff and external stakeholders.

Elders Engagement
Métis Nation British Columbia (MNBC)
Project Amount: $24,662 

MNBC will conduct Elders Engagement in the Metro Vancouver area to support the identification of, and contact with Métis Elders and their families in the Lower Mainland area. Through this engagement project, Métis Elders will identify how they can actively be involved as transgenerational imparters of Traditional Knowledge and Métis history. Another key strategy in this proposal is to attract and engage Métis elders who may not be connected with a Métis community in the social and cultural activities of the Métis Nation BC in the Lower Mainland, with a focus on Elders, Veterans and Educational programs.

Aboriginal Health and Wellness Specialist Curriculum Development
Native Education College
Project Amount: $54,580

The Aboriginal Mental Health and Addictions (AMH&A) program will incorporate Aboriginal healing and wellness practices in collaboration with other Aboriginal organizations who are delivering wellness programs (Aboriginal Wellness, Coastal Health, Squamish Nation) in the development of culturally appropriate curriculum for a 10.5 month certificate course in Aboriginal Mental Health and Addictions.

Aboriginal Culture, Life-skills and Health Program
Pacific Community Resources Society
Project Amount: $11,910

West Coast Alternate School, which is designed for high school students with Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder and have social, emotional and academic needs, will provide a life-skills and health program with a focus on supports for the students. The program will also provide additional educational opportunities in life skills; including hygiene, cooking and nutrition, cultural awareness, and parenting and will create work experience placement.  Students will gain respect and knowledge of their heritage and culture through the support of artists, storytellers, and Elders from within the community.

Richmond Aboriginal Life-skills and Leadership for Youth (RALLY)
Richmond Youth Services Association (RYSA)
Project Amount: $44,868

RALLY promotes youth leadership skill and life-skill development through a series of workshops, community development activities, involvement in traditional carving workshops, outdoor activities, leadership workshops, individual empowerment and the learning of traditional practices and skills.

Aboriginal Child and Family Literacy Feast
School District 40 – New Westminster
Project Amount: $44,868

The project will involve the development of culturally appropriate literacy kits that will be distributed at a cultural feast to over 100 families in New Westminster who have children in Kindergarten to Grade 3. The intent of the kits is to increase knowledge of early development in families, increase access to community resources, and increase food security through the inclusion of health cooking recipes that are culturally relevant and geared towards families.

Aboriginal University Prep Program
Simon Fraser University
Project Amount: $95,645

The Aboriginal University Prep Program provides Aboriginal youth and adults with transitional experiences prior to formal admission to post-secondary education with the aim of enhancing participants’ probability of achieving academic success at the university level and enabling retention of Aboriginal students. The program achieves these objectives through a comprehensive curriculum that imparts skills and knowledge essential to Aboriginal student success in mainstream academic studies.

Literacy and Computer Skills Development
Surrey Public Library
Project Amount: $14,500

The Surrey Public Library, in connection with the Awashsuk Aboriginal Headstart Preschool and Kla-how-eya Culinary Arts, developed the literacy and computer skills program. The program will support the Surrey Aboriginal community through outreach, direct delivery of computer technology courses and improving access to library resources and services with the goal of improving Aboriginal youth literacy.

Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences
University of British Columbia
Project Amount: $48,300

The University of British Columbia (UBC), as represented by the Pacific Institute for the Mathematical Sciences, (PIMS) will provide opportunities for Aboriginal learners to acquire mathematics foundational skills through a mentorship program while offering workshops on best practices and methods of instruction to teachers with high attendance of Aboriginal youth.  MVUAS funding will be used to provide scholarships and living assistance for Aboriginal students in addition to mentoring services in the form of after-school tutoring by qualified instructors.

Digital Technology Education Society Initiative (DTES)
Vancouver Native Housing Society
Project Amount: $74,648

The DTES project will provide an opportunity for Aboriginal youth to learn digital trades through career-shadowing, mentoring and training over a period of four months.  VNHS will utilize their partnerships with Vancouver Aboriginal Social Enterprise, (VASE) the nuMedia Group and the Broadway Youth Resource Centre, (BYRC) to select and train youth for this project.