Graduates mean business

It was a big day for Kahnawa’kehró:non at the First Nations Executive Education (FNEE) graduation this month, with six community members celebrating the completion of courses that will further their leadership skills.

“It’s been such a great opportunity to be with other Native women. It’s great to have those contacts because we can support each other,” said Tammy Beauvais, who graduated from the five-day Women and Leadership program.

“We have so many things in common, we have similar struggles and similar problems we need to solve, so working together and brainstorming what we want to change is really powerful.”

Beauvais graduated from the Women and Leadership program alongside fellow Kahnawa’kehró:non Sherry Delisle, Suzie Delaronde, Kara Zemel, and her sister Fran Beauvais.

Fran said that meeting other Indigenous women on the course was a highlight of the week.

“We had that opportunity to encourage one another, to support one another and say, ‘You know what? Don’t give up, you can do it, even though things are hard,’” she said. “There was great camaraderie between the students and every woman in there had a different reason for being there.”

The program is one of many offered by FNEE and co-created by Ecole des hautes etudes commerciales (HEC) Montreal, an internationally recognized business school offering a range of business programs.

FNEE itself was created in 2021 by Ken Rock, who is Innu, and Manon Jeannotte, who is Mi’kmaq. The organization now offers six programs that all offer tuition to students for free, thanks to funding from corporate partners.

“It’s fantastic, because these kinds of programs are not cheap,” Tammy said. “That’s really, really special.”

Also graduating was Ashley Ross, who was the only person from Kahnawake to graduate from the Management program.

That program includes approximately 60 hours of training and is taken over roughly seven months.

“You get to know different people and see what they’re doing in their communities, and just get to know them, helping each other to be better managers and leaders,” Ross said. “We all went home actually reflecting on what we learned.”

Ross is currently office manager at the Mohawk Council of Kahnawake (MCK) Public Safety Unit and said that the course helped her think about how to improve her management style. She learned about effective communication styles, conflict resolution, and how to identify strengths and weaknesses in her own style.

“I would really encourage people to apply, because at first I was worried about if I would have time to do homework and things, but it’s not at all geared like that, it’s really focused on real life,” she said. “It was a really integrative type of management training; it wasn’t just books and homework.”

Tiohenta Lahache-McComber, FNEE’s participant recruitment manager, said that’s exactly the kind of atmosphere the organization seeks to foster. She is also from Kahnawake and joined the team at FNEE in February this year.

“Our programs are designed for busy people, for busy entrepreneurs and busy business men or women,” she said. “A lot of times we worry about it, thinking ‘Oh, I haven’t done this in so long,’ but when we get in the room, we realize we’re in it with everybody.”

The courses are designed by and for Indigenous people, and Lahache-McComber said that makes for a productive learning experience.

“It gives us a chance to share our realities, to be able to learn together and build nationhood. Often, we don’t get a chance to network with other First Nations communities, and this definitely gives us that chance to be in that space together,” she said.

For Zemel, also a graduate of the Women and Leadership program, that opportunity was particularly useful. She works for the First Nations Land Management Resource Centre as a senior registration officer. Right now, she’s working on the First Nation Land Governance Registry where she’s helping create a new land registry, and has been conducting more frequent meetings with lawyers, community leaders, and government officials.

“Sometimes in these spaces women aren’t always listened to, so I applied to the program to help with that,” she said.

“I got to hear about the awesome work that women are doing in their communities, and the amazing strength they have to do things when they’re the only ones that are trying to do it.”

Zemel said she was so inspired by the program that she’s already registered for the management program and will be starting in April.

[email protected]