Deborah Bright

Tell us about your work in your community

I am the education manager for our band and have been interested in CED for a long time.   My current role is to train people so that they become employable and to provide their skills to the community.

Tell us a story about a time you brought people together to improve your community.

I brought a group of young women and girls to develop their skills in fashion and design. We fundraised to bring in a lady who is very skilled in First Nations fashion and design.  After 3 months, we held a fashion show and dinner.  It was very successful.

What problems are you trying to solve?

How does our community go from dependent to independent.  We have 1/5 of our population on social assistance.

What do you need to learn how to do in order to solve those problems?

We need to strategically plan / scan the environment and see which fields would be viable.  Is it tourism, manufacturing, eco-tourism, food security, farming,

What are the most powerful questions you need to ask right now?

How do we get everyone to work together and explore our options of getting from Social assistance to becoming independent?  How do we create jobs?  What is the future of our youth? 

If we all worked together, what do you imagine that we could achieve in the next five to ten years?

In the next five to 10 years, we can achieve many things including employment that will give our community hope, for a brighter future.  We will have a ced plan that would utilize all of the human resources and natural resources that we currently have.  ie. non-utilized territories, fishery, forestry, manufactoring, tourism, eco-tourism, farming, etc.