Richard in carpentry class

Hello NYA Program Participants, sponsors, future NYA participants and alumni. My name is Richard Tungilik and I am 21 years old. I started off with the Northern Youth Abroad in 2015 as a Canadian Program Participant, and this year I am participating in the NYA Next Program. This has been a busy but exciting year for me as I prepared myself for the program.

I have come to discover my career interests are either working in the Canadian Armed Forces, working in an environmental or wildlife job, or working in carpentry. I’m currently taking courses in carpentry at Algonquin Collage and have been learning a lot from the instructor. We work with a partner on class projects and are currently making a dog house.

I really respect our instructor as he owns his own business and I hope one day to have my own business in my home community. I still have a lot of learning to do before I can start my own business but the program has been a great start for me to gain experience. I’ve been able to set goals during the program which has helped me focus a lot on what I need to do next. Having the experience of living on a college campus has been really cool. Overall this experience has been really rewarding and I can’t wait put into action what I have learned.