Economic Development

This program focuses on income generation for communities, businesses and individuals.

The targets are individuals who need to be captured by labour market requirements, intending entrepreneurs, and business owners at every stage of the business cycle.

For individuals, programming will target providing skills and tools for individuals to earn both business and employment income. For businesses, programming will target reducing barriers and increasing opportunities in access to finance, improving business management capabilities of business owners through training, mentoring and other forms of learning, and creating linkages and access to service providers, infrastructure, and market. For communities, we are developing programs that can catalyze the diversification of revenue sources through entrepreneurship and business development. We will focus on community economic development planning, supporting the creation of and improving the capacity of existing community-owned businesses.

Creating entrepreneurial minds among youths

Business management can be taught but having an entrepreneurial mind is a function of interest. Developing an interest in a venture or practice can be influenced by so many factors. Here we focus on developing entrepreneurial minds in youths so that they can take entrepreneurship as a pathway for advancement in life through many programs that we will be developing such as:

○ Youth Entrepreneurship Education for High School (The YEEHS Project)

The aim of the YEEHS Project is to contribute to building and strengthening privately owned businesses through the development of business skills among high school youth. We want to create a program to teach business and investment, year in and year out, to Senior High School pupils within the age bracket 15 -20. Enrolment into the program must have a minimum of 60% representation for girls and 70% focus on Indigenous and black youth.

Increasing the capacity of business owners for effective business leadership

Programs will focus on individuals who are already in business and intending business owners, examples of which include:

Annual business plan competition with seed funding for winners

Continuous training for business owners

Promoting and supporting Indigenous economic development

The contribution of Indigenous peoples to the economy of Manitoba and Canada is well documented. However, there are historical and contemporary challenges to the advancement of Indigenous Economic development. We initiate and support programs to catalyze, advance or accelerate Indigenous Economic Development.

Workforce integration

This program supports people who have little to no job experience or who have been out of the workforce for some time, with a culturally appropriate and sector-tailored workforce development program. Workshops on soft skills and employability are provided in addition to one-on-one career counselling. Key program activities include: