Video series highlight Aboriginal entrepreneurs

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Probably the easiest and most effective way to inspire young people to become entrepreneurs is to introduce them to others who have followed, and achieved their dreams.

The Spirit Lives: Aboriginal Entrepreneurs in Canada, is a six-part video series designed to do just that. Produced by the non-profit Canadian Foundation for Economic Education in collaboration with the Kwakiult Dis-trict Council in Port Hardy, B.C., it's designed to be used by educators to act as a catalyst among Aboriginal youth and within Native communities.

Interspersed with profiles of successful entrepreneurs from across Canada, each of the six half-hour programs focuses on a different aspect of entrepreneurship.

For example, the third program looks at the difference between an op-portunity and an idea. An entrepreneurial opportunity is defined as a need, want or problem that has not been addressed or that can be addressed more effectively. An idea is the specific way in which an entrepreneur will at-tempt to address a given opportunity.

For instance, the widespread and increasing concern for the environ-ment can be seen as an opportunity; developing a new method of packaging to reduce waste is an idea to take advantage of this opportunity.

Characteristics common to entrepreneurs are examined point by point, as are important skills and the steps an entrepreneur must take to set up a business.

The series is to be used in schools, and business and community de-velopment. It includes a user's guide to help teachers in entrepreneurship education and economic development programs in Aboriginal schools and communities. It's not a course in itself, stresses producer Jim Lang; it's a source for teachers.

Lang is a former teacher. Some 25 year ago, he spent a year teaching children at Atikameg in northern Alberta and, from 1985 until 1988, he taught youngsters in Nahanni Butte in the Northwest Territories. He found that the children really suffer in the educational system.

That experience drove home to Lang, who is non-Native, the impor-tance of Native role models and teachers.

"There are thousands and thousands of Native entrepreneurs in this country. It's the best-kept secret in Canada," he said at the Edmonton launch of the video series.

He choose 30 from a list of more than 1,000 to feature in the series, which took three years to produce. He also insisted on hiring a Native editor and narrator, Melanie Goodchild, from Big Grassy First Nation in Ontario. Goodchild, 23, started her own company, Rain Dancer Film, March 3 and The Spirit Lives was her first contract.

Entrepreneurs profile include:

Gary Oker, who founded the Northern Shadow Dancers in Dawson Creek, B.C. Oker, who is also a fashion designer, considers his dance com-pany a cultural school on the road. His students make traditional clothes and dance in them. All students are involved in the marketing and promotion.

"If they're interested in accounting, they can get into that, too," Oker said. They learn the dances from Elders and perform at such venues as the Pacific National Exhibition in Vancouver, the gathering of the Assembly of First Nations several years ago, and in the United States and Europe.

Anna Nibby-Woods, a Micmac graphic designer in Beaver Bank, N.S., who left a good job after 17 years to set up Nibby Graphics, where she takes an idea and turns it into a visual product. Tired of putting in long, hard days for somebody else, now she puts in "140 per cent" for herself.

"I could starve, I could lose my house, I could lose everything I've worked for over the years," she said of her decision to strike out on her own. "That fear turned into confidence." Her clients include corporations and the National Film Board. Working with other artists, she also founded the Micmac Heritage Museum, which displays and sells works by Aboriginal artists including Jim Logan and Alan Syliboy. She's now working on her second company, Nebooktook Tours, a troupe that performs traditionl dances and ceremonies for tourists.

Kaaydah Schatten, a Kwakiutl from Campbell river, B.C., who devel-oped and patented a way to clean ceiling tiles without removing them, for one-tenth the cost of traditional cleaning methods. She founded the Ceiling Doctor, a franchise company which licences other people to use their proc-ess. In return, the franchisees pay a royalty back to Kaaydah and her hus-band Rob Forrest. Today, the Ceiling doctor has more than 110 franchises around the world.

Winnie Giesbrecht, who saw that Aboriginal people who come to Winni-peg for health-care services were at a disadvantage because they didn't know the city, and often, the language. A nurse, she set up Nakiska Place, a boarding house, home health-care and translation service near Manitoba capital's downtown core. Aboriginal people from across the province and the Northwest Territories fill her bedrooms and dining rooms. Winnie and her son, Darren, receive the clients, board them, take them to their appointments, translate medical information, using a staff of interpreters, and take them to banks and movies. She was recently honored as Aboriginal woman of the year in Winnipeg, a city that boasts the largest urban Aboriginal population in Canada.

For more information, call the Canadian Foundation for Economic Edu-cation at (416) 968-2236 or fax (416) 968-0488.