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Nursing student is first to receive new $20,000 health award

A photo of Allison Forbes
A photo of Allison Forbes supplied by Hotıì ts’eeda.

Nursing student Allison Forbes, from Yellowknife, will receive a $20,000 stipend through a new fund created to support Indigenous health research.

The newly formed Edets’seèhdzà Studentship is funded by Hotıì ts’eeda, the NWT’s health research support unit.

The money will help returning Aurora College students to take part in such research while studying.

Forbes, a third-year Bachelor of Nursing student, is working toward becoming a community health nurse.

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Hotıì ts’eeda said Forbes will work with the Aurora Research Institute’s Dr Pertice Moffitt “on several projects to broaden her perspective on Indigenous and northern health and research.”

Dr John B Zoe, chair, said he hopes the new fund will allow students to have “deep and meaningful involvement in health and wellness research in the NWT,” while helping to increase the number of “homegrown researchers and health professionals” in the North.

Aurora College’s new president, Tom Weegar, said: “We are proud of Allison and look forward to her future accomplishments.”

The Hotıì ts’eeda unit is hosted by the Tłı̨chǫ Government and funded by federal agency the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Edets’seèhdzà, the name of the funding program, means “stepping forward to challenge yourself” in the Tłı̨chǫ language.