The Association for Co-operative Education and Work-Integrated Learning BC / Yukon is pleased to announce the recipients of the Co-op/WIL Student of the Year Awards for 2024. These awards recognize BC or Yukon students who demonstrate an outstanding level of achievement in their co-operative education or work-integrated learning experience; combined with a strong academic record, volunteer activities, and significant contributions to promoting co-operative education in their school and in the community.

UNIVERSITY STUDENT WIL AWARD

Loretta Hanson – Vancouver Island University

My name is Loretta Hanson and I am a recent graduate of the Early Childhood Education. I came from the Tla’Amin Nation Home Support team just to fill in at our local daycare because our daycare is a part of Tla’Amin Health. The Health administrator suggested casual and part time employees get the responsible adult to get in more hours of work at the daycare because they were short staffed. I met with the newly appointed daycare supervisor and applied as an RA. She took me on to help in the different classrooms that needed workers. I decided I enjoyed the atmosphere and change of pace and just being there that I did some research for online classes to acquire the ECE Certificate. There are a lot of good academic online schools to achieve this, and I had decided that Pacific Rim was who I was going to go with.

As I finished getting all my funding and registration figured out, I had read in the local Neh’Motl newsletter that they were going to be offering a two-year work integrated learning co-hort with VIU of the ECE certificate in Tla’Amin if there was enough interest. I had spoken with friends and co-workers to decide if this was my best route to do this or do it online. The best advice was from a dear friend who said if you have too much going in your life than I would say it is too much for you to commit to it. I sat with my family who fully supported the idea of me going back to school. I filled out the registration to become part of the ECE Certificate co-hort class.

HONOURABLE MENTION – Sitayesh Cheryl Malik, Vancouver Island University