Dear fellow readers,

My name is Christopher Canadien and I’m from Fort Providence NT. I was a Canadian participant in 2015 and was placed in Bear River, Nova Scotia. My work placement was in another town 10mins away, and my name placement buddy was Dalton Takazo. During the NYA Next program I got to tour the other Algonquin campus that is placed in Pembroke, which is an hour and a half away outside of Ottawa. NYA open my eyes about life and my career options.

Chris (right) plays Table Tennis with Canadian Program Participant Adam during NYA’s Orientation Camp. (Photo Credit: Thorsten Gohl)

As part of NYA Next in groups of four we had to plan and lead group activities and also plan a meal and cook for the group. These exercises taught us skills like how to budget. The group activities budget was 200$ and the food budget was 100$.

During our first weekend here we went camping at Fitzroy provincial park, when we first got there it was raining hard and we also put up the tents in the rain. The first night a mouse went into Jenn and Sherifa’s tent and took our food. The following day we rented a canoe and a kayak and went to the beach. The camping was really different than I was used to, we bought wood, there was electricity and even a store (lol). On the last day everyone was eager to go home (back to Algonquin College).

In conclusion NYA next in an amazing program and hopefully they do this program in the future.

Yours truly,

Chris