Last fall Tresley Tourond-Bouvier joined 14 other Aboriginal youth working in various branches of the British Columbia provincial government through the Aboriginal Youth Internship Program. Tresley says her internship at the Nursing Directorate in the Ministry of Health in Vancouver has influenced her thinking about how she can build a career and serve the public.
“I considered going into politics and government,” she says. “But through my experience at the Nursing Directorate, I learned that I could also serve my community as a nurse.”
At the Directorate, Tresley designed a plan for the youth-specific Aboriginal Nursing Recruitment Strategy. She took an approach based on organizing focus-groups to get information on how Aboriginal youth learn about careers and how they perceive nursing as a career choice.
Her work fostered the development of skills, including project leadership, focus group facilitation, and stakeholder relations development. She says the whole process of starting with an idea, committing it to paper, and making it real through a step-by-step process has been an invaluable experience.
Originally from Saskatchewan, Tresley is Métis. In her early twenties she started volunteering for the Métis community in order to learn more about her cultural heritage.
She began as a regional youth representative and committee chairperson for the BC United Métis Youth Circle, and eventually attained a voting seat on Board of Directors of Métis Nation BC, the organization that represents British Columbia’s 59,000 Métis citizens.
While working at Métis Nation BC, Tresley held office as Minister Responsible for Youth and Minister Responsible for the Métis Veterans Association – BC. She gained experience working on the Electoral Reform Committee and the Governance Committee.
In 2003, Tresley became one of two representatives from British Columbia serving on the Métis National Youth Advisory Council, which she has co-chaired for two years. Since 2006, she has been a member of the Dominion Institute’s Advisory Committee for the National Aboriginal Youth Writing Challenge.
To complete her internship program, Tresley will return to Métis Nation BC for three months later this spring. After that she is looking at three to four years training to become a nurse.
“Through the internship program I met nurses who worked for years in public health care and then developed careers in public policy,” Tresley says. “It’s a future that appeals to me, because it’s all about helping people and building better communities.”
The Aboriginal Youth Internship Program, launched the fall of 2007 to provide opportunities for work experience through the British Columbia Public Service Agency, will be accepting applications from Aboriginal youth across the province again this year.