Sheldon Valiquette
Title: YU@W Participant
Biography:
Sheldon Valiquette. I am currently in my third year, majoring in sociology graduating in 2019.
My home town is Poplar River First Nation, which is an isolated reserve located in northern Manitoba which is only accessible by plane or winter road.
One of the reasons why I chose to participate in the youth united program is because last semester I took the intro to urban inner city studies class and really enjoyed it. One of the things I enjoyed most about the intro to inner city studies class was learning about many of the community organizations in the inner city and I saw this program as the perfect opportunity to get involved with some of these organizations and learn more about how I can help them help others. Another reason why I chose to participate in the youth united program is because when I am done school I hope to work with communities and help fix some of the problems they deal with, and I saw this this as good work experience.
One of the things I hope to take from this program as a learning experience is knowledge about residential schools and its effects, as well as how to help fix some of these effects. The reason why I want to gain this knowledge is that so maybe I can take some of it with me back to my home community which is still dealing with many of the negative consequences that residential schools have brought.