Three Aboriginal students from Saugeen District Secondary School have brought home the gold and with it, 25 hundred dollars cash for the school.
Teacher Adrian Kahgee said the students–Richelle Ritchie, Sammi Jo Thompson and Jody Lee Johnston–were part of the E-Spirit competition.
Kahgee says the competition is a national Aboriginal Youth Business Plan competition developed by the Business Development Bank of Canada.
She says it’s a 16-week internet-based competition featuring how to develop a business plan for a unique business thought up by students and incorporating Aboriginal cultures for the masses.
The SDSS group chose to create a Living Earth Community Garden Centre natural health business featuring the plants in the area that are readily accessible to everyone.
Student Richelle Ritchie says their project focused on natural remedies and medicines that are local to the area.
Richie says they talked to the Elders of their community, created the business plan for operation that would ultimately teach others.
She says there were lots of business ideas from the cross-Canada competition including a dance school that would focus on native traditional dance and a funeral home business that would include the First Nation traditions of services and burials.
Adrian Kahgee says the SDSS team took one of the 12 achievement awards which was for Environmental Awareness.
The group also took the overall gold medal for the presentation which comes with a 25 hundred dollar cash prize.
Kahgee says the money goes to the school but the winning team has some say in how the cash should be spent.
She says the students would like to see the money be used to fund future entries in the competition and to educate the student population that everyone is welcomed to be a part of the team–not just Aboriginals.
This year’s final competition took place in Kelowna, B. C. with 63 teams from 30 schools across Canada.
Close to 170 Aboriginal students, in grades 10 to 12 took part.