My second year with NYA this summer!

NYA NEXT is based on you preparing towards your career and what you want to achieve and we are living in the Algonquin Residence. First week of the NEXT Program we went to the kitchen made homemade tortilla chips and sauce that chef Katie taught us and it was delicious! We were also in construction class making picture frames, dog house, step stool and carve our name(s) on wood. We donated the dog houses to who ever wanted it and I am happy that we did give them out. There was a workshop called Inspire workshop it is an indigenous people who are working on their business.

I am looking forward for my future, I want to be able to open up a cafe in my home community which we don’t have any, I was inspired by a local in Stittsville that I worked for last summer for the Canadian phase, I absolutely loved everything about the coffee house, the beverages, light snacks, meals and the settings! I really hope I get to where I want to be in the next few years!

For my group cultural activity we did our Inuit tradition which is square dance, back in my home community every does a get together and make 8 man way 4 men and 4 women and they use a routine for the square. Dene did their part of cultural activity which were hand games, drum dancing (two step) and singing.

Fun events in Ottawa. I LOVED the Ottawa Asian Fest in downtown Ottawa, we got to see dancers who were dancing to K-POP and my most favourite part at the Fest was when Stray Kids songs went on lol. I was hesitant to on the main “floor” to dance to their songs when they were doing a K-POP random dance. A random K-POP dance is they play a random K-POP song for 15-20 seconds and the audience can join the floor to dance, if I can remember I think there was about 30 songs playing during that time. Later after that they were playing a game called pop the balloon with different parts of your body with your partner and Sunshine and I nearly played the game but the guy who held it said that we looked too bougie to play LOL.

You can do anything that you put your mind to, don’t give up on your dreams and I hope you will achieve your goals.

Verna Kalluk.