FNUniv student revels in new leadership role
- Tiffany Head | July 20, 2016
Twenty-one year-old, Heather O’watch, from Okanese First Nation, has just come home from a successful trip in Ottawa.
The First Nations University of Canada (FNUniv) student is currently enrolled in the Indian Communication Arts (INCA) program, and is pursuing a career in Journalism but in the meantime she is taking on leadership roles to serve her fellow students.
“The media release that you received is about my new position in the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), a national organization for post-secondary students,” said O’watch.
O’watch attended the CFS national annual general meeting where she was nominated to represent all Saskatchewan post-secondary students, Indigenous and non-indigenous.
“It’s a national platform of student movement and I was recently elected as a national executive Saskatchewan representative,” she said.
O’watch says after she graduated from high school in 2013, she started attending FNUniv and has never taken a break; she’s been active with the student post movement and takes part in the FNUniv student association.
“I’m the Vice President of communications at the FNUniv and I see that we are localized and part of CFS, a national platform that allows students to come together, to work together; to bring these issues and campaigns and motions to light,” she said.
She said there are two other students from FNUniv that were elected into the CFS.
“Not only am I the Saskatchewan representative for the national executive, we also have a business student, Larrissa Wapooseyan, who was elected as Saskatchewan chair person, on the provincial component, and we also have Chasity Delorme, national executive for the Aboriginal representative,” said O’Watch.
Delorme is an alumnus and successfully elected in her second term. She represents all the Indigenous and aboriginal post-secondary students across Canada.
As a national executive, O’Watch says she wants post-secondary students to work together in communicating with the federal, provincial and regional governments about their issues.
“My reason for running was I felt confident to do so and I wanted to take on the opportunity, being successful in that, I can go forward and campaign and really be a voice for all post-secondary students across Saskatchewan, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous,” said O’Watch.
She said that being a part of the CFS allows students to have support locally and nationally from other constituencies and caucuses; to be able to voice their opinions and concerns.
O’Watch says she does not have any duties at the moment as she is newly elected but she says to be on the lookout as the students will definitely have more involvement with CFS within their own campuses.