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Oshki-Wenjack Education Institute

Oshki-Wenjack nurses

Indigenous Education Institutes plan new programming with provincial grants

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Ontario will provide $57 million to Indigenous Education Institutes over the next three years as part of a larger $6.4 billion funding increase to post-secondary schools.

Thunder Bay’s Oshki-Pimache-O-Win: The Wenjack Institute (Oshki-Wenjack) and Kenora’s Seven Generations Education Institute are among a handful to receive a share of the investment.

While Indigenous institutes currently rely on collaborative partnerships with other post-secondary schools for many of their programs, the new funding will help these institutes develop their own independent programs.

Oshki-Wenjack president Lorrie Deschamps says her school is still determining what new programs it will add, and is already surveying Nishnawbe Aski Nation communities for input.

She says the first priority will be Indigenous language programs.

“I think it’s important for those who may not know, or have lost their language, that part of our goal is to bring it back,” Deschamps says.

Beyond language programs, she says the community is mostly clamouring for programs in the trades, such as construction and plumbing, in early childhood education, and in teaching.

For many individuals in remote First Nations, Oshki-Wenjack’s appeal is in its flexibility, as it gives them the chance to study from their home communities.

“They’re able to be with their families and keep their employment while they finish the program,” Deschamps explains.

The situation is familiar for Deschamps, who herself had to travel far from home for high school as a youth.

“When students come here… they lose that relationship maybe with the land, with their parents, and they want to go home after a while because it’s so different here.”

Having recently become accredited, and now with new funding for independent programming, the next big goal for Oshki-Wenjack is to establish its own campus.

In the meantime, the institute plans to host a 25th anniversary gala on May 29 at the Valhalla Hotel and Conference Centre in Thunder Bay.

Oshki-Wenjack graduation 1

Oshki-Wenjack celebrates first graduating class of social work program

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Oshki-Pimache-O-Win: The Wenjack Education Institute held a graduation ceremony on Friday for its first-ever bachelor of social work (BSW) cohort.

Oshki-Wenjack’s BSW program is organized in collaboration with Algoma University, which issues the credentials.

Students of the two-year program travelled to Thunder Bay’s Best Western Plus NorWester Hotel & Conference Centre to celebrate the occasion.

“There’s something very unique and special about when you’re working with and for your own people,” says class valedictorian Shannon Courchene, “as well as at the same time trying to get all those academic accomplishments.”

Courchene says that everyone in the BSW program was working in the field of social work while pursuing their education.

“As challenging as it was, that’s how rewarding it was too,” Courchene adds.

BSW valedictorian Shannon Courchene delivers an emotional speech about the achievements of her graduating class. (Sam Goldstein/October 24, 2025)

Ontario New Democratic Party Deputy Leader and MPP for Kiiwetinoong Sol Mamakwa made a surprise appearance at the event.

“There’s so much trauma we see in First Nations, and at all levels there seems to be this constant or perpetual crisis in our communities,” says Mamakwa. “It took generations to be there, and it’s going to take generations to get out of that.”

Referring to the graduating students, Mamakwa says “that’s part of the work that they’re studying, to be able to help First Nations become healthy, become well.”

ONDP Deputy Leader and Kiiwetinoong MPP Sol Mamakwa. (Sam Goldstein/October 24, 2025)

Courchene believes that in addition to the knowledge she gained, the BSW program helped her and her classmates gain confidence in themselves.

“Being in a classroom with all Indigenous women, that’s just so special in itself,” she says. “Who we are and why we do the work that we do is just as important as showing up in the classroom every day.”

The first graduating class of Oshki-Wenjack’s BSW program. (Sam Goldstein/October 24, 2025)

Oshki-Wenjack nurses

Oshki-Wenjack Education Institute achieves provincial accreditation

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After years of effort to meet more than two dozen quality assurance standards, the Oshki-Wenjack Education Institute in Thunder Bay is now a provincially accredited institution.

“Today is another new beginning,” says Oshki-Wenjack president Lorrie Deschamps.

Now that Oshki-Wenjack is accredited, the institute will be able to offer more for its students.

“We are going to have the opportunity to create our own programming based on our community needs, and we’re able to provide more cultural programming. We’re going to be able to grant our degrees and certificates instead of going through the partnerships that we have right now,” Deschamps says.

Oshki-Wenjack is small – the institute currently has between 200 and 250 students, and classes tend to feature 15-20 students each.

Fabian Batise is a Co-Chair of the institute’s governing council. He explains that students from First Nations communities are attracted to the institute’s offerings.

“It’s the differences that we offer. We offer the cultural, the land-based approach. Maybe the opportunity to work from your First Nation as part of the programming going back and forth from the school to the First Nation,” Batise says. “And here it offers that extra degree of personal attentiveness that we have.”

The institute’s greatest success so far has arguably been its nursing program. Deschamps states the institute has a wait-list for nursing, and Batise believes the program is unrivalled when it comes to First Nations health services.

Merging Western teaching and First Nation traditions

Pearl Helton is two weeks from graduating from Oshki-Wenjack with a Bachelor of Social Work. She appreciates that she has access to everything a university would provide, but in a smaller, more intimate, and culturally sensitive space.

When students at Oshki-Wenjack aren’t in the classroom, they have opportunities to connect with the land and the great outdoors. Helton particularly appreciated the chance to be in sharing circles with an elder.

“We were able to talk about what it was that was on our mind that day, and able to smudge, and able to have that peace to share and to be safe,” Helton remarks.

Bachelor of Social Work student Pearl Helton, right, poses with one of her educators. (Sam Goldstein/October 9, 2025)

Helton feels that enrolling in Oshki-Wenjack meant finding a community that understood her. “This institution is more than a school; it is a place of cultural safety, support, and reconciliation in action.”

President Deschamps says the next step for Oshki-Wenjack is to begin looking for a proper campus space with its own grounds. The process of reaching towards that has only just begun, but in the meantime, the institute will continue to operate at its location in Fort William.

Helton may be almost ready to move on, but she feels Oshki-Wenjack will be a boon for First Nations.

“Education is a powerful medicine. It is. “It transforms not only individuals, but entire families and communities,” Helton says. “Oshki-Wenjack makes that possible for students from remote First Nation communities who might otherwise never have access to post-secondary education. Its programs connect culture, identity, and academics.”