OHSWEKEN – Provincial Parliamentary Assistant to the Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy, Chris Ballard, announced that $495,000 will be given to the Six Nations Polytechnic to help improve educational opportunities for Aboriginal students and children affected by poverty on Wednesday, September 2.
Ontario will be investing up to $529,000 in two projects by Six Nations Polytechnic and the City of Brantford,
Deputy Premier Deb Matthews, President of the Treasury Boards and Minister Responsible for the Poverty Reduction Strategy said the fund tries to invest in “what works.”
“Through the fund our government is investing over 50 million dollars over 6 years to support innovative and sustainable, community driven initiatives that measurably improve the lives of those most affected by poverty,” she explained. “I launched the fund with an expression of interest in April, 2015, and now we are inviting community and broader public sector organizations to submit proposals for funding. I’m very excited about this fund, because communities matter,” she explained.
“With this fund, we are establishing a new way of tackling poverty, one that’s rooted in evidence. I’m thrilled to see that Six Nations Polytechnic and the City of Brantford are helping us build the evidence we need to make sure we are investing in what works, and in what makes peoples’ lives better,” she said.
Involved with several funding initiatives, President of the Six Nations Polytechnic Rebecca Jamieson said Polytech is “pleased” to be a part of the poverty reduction strategy in regards to programming.
“Six Nations Polytechnic is very pleased to actively participate in Ontario’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, Realizing Our Potential. SNP’s collaborative and integrated approach to education and poverty reduction is about empowerment. This project is a unique intervention applying Indigenous and other knowledge systems to effect change at the level of the individual through the community level. The project scope ranges from education and training access to employment retention. It is anticipated that community stakeholders will identify innovative systemic ways to address factors that attribute to poverty and in doing so contribute to reduced community tolerance for poverty,” said Jamieson.
