The first area of recommendation addresses suggestions for NILA, the project Sponsor. These recommendations are reflective of the ways NILA can best support the rural and northern EC to be more effective. Specifically NILA recommendations link to the first sub question, “What stories do ECs in rural and northern regions tell about their successes with clients?”
The success stories described by the participants were about the efforts of the Aboriginal job seeker and describe ways that NILA can influence that overall employment system and advocate for the individuals that are suffering the most. A summary of the evidence and recommendations can be found in Appendix H.
There are three overall recommendations for NILA, followed by some suggestions for implementation and awareness of the impacts of the project. Completing the section is the Aboriginal Job Seeker integral chart (see Table 7), which provides a summary of the recommendations. Recommendations for NILA are connected to their activities on a national level and relate to funding relationships with the other stakeholders relating to literacy and employment readiness for Aboriginals in Canada. There is definitely room for leadership relating to the employment readiness of Aboriginal people in Canada.
NILA should present themselves as a national advocate for Aboriginal employment readiness programs. There is a great need for someone to step forward and link literacy more directly to employability. Lamontagne (2004) addressed the future for an Aboriginal workforce and, when discussing literacy and education, told the reader, “Recent research suggests that literacy levels might be a better predictor of labour market outcomes”
(p. 6).
As NILA creates awareness to the problem, so do they create awareness of the needs of the ECs who are working to make the employment connections for Aboriginal job seekers in rural and Northern Manitoba, it is in this way that NILA can best support the EC to be more effective.