How students from Moose Factory are getting health science education closer to home

Four students have recently completed their first year of the Specialist High Skills Major program in health and wellness at Delores D. Echum Composite School in Moose Factory.

The program includes participating in the Weeneebayko Summer Program at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont. Other high school students from Moose Factory, Peawanuck, Attawapiskat and Fort Albany also attended the summer program.

Jewel Chum was part of the program. She was 13 when she first left her her home in Moose Factory to attend Grade 9 in Cochrane, Ont., since the compulsory credits she needed were unavailable at her home high school.

“I moved with my auntie and my uncle. They just asked me if I wanted to because they knew what kind of schooling they had here and it wasn’t really that good compared to out of town,” said Chum.

“I moved there from Grade 9 to about Grade 10,and I really enjoyed the courses they offered there. The teachers and the people there were really nice.”

But, she says it was difficult to be away from her parents for so long. Ultimately, the distance from her family led to her decision to move back home.

“I had a really tough time going to school mentally. I missed my family a lot and we would FaceTime once in a while, but it wasn’t enough for me to keep going to school… I cried a lot, every day, every night.”

The Specialist High Skills Major program is the first of its kind to be offered at an Indigenous school in Ontario. Chum says it’s a great opportunity for Indigenous students to be closer to home. Similar to Chum’s journey, Indigenous youth often have to move to bigger towns or cities to get the high-school credentials needed to pursue post-secondary education.

It also offers the opportunity for youth to travel to the Queen’s University campus in Kingston, Ont. as part of the Weeneebayko Student Summer Program. During the week-long trip in June, students are introduced to careers in the health professions. 

“One project we did focused on mental health and drug addiction. It was called the Youth Mental Health Innovation Project. There were sixteen of us. We all got split into two groups. One group focused on drug addiction and my group focused more on mental health… We want to take the project further on.”

After this experience, Chum says she wants to pursue a career in mental health so she can help those in her community who struggle with mental health and addiction issues.

“I’ve seen my family, my friends, even myself go through these mental health problems… that’s something I would want to do to try to help my community do better, not just mine, but others.”

David Taylor, the senior adviser of  Queen’s University and Weeneebayko Area Health Authority partnership, says the program is part of a bigger goal to deliver high-quality healthcare to the James Bay coast.

According to Taylor, the high school program creates educational pathways for local university programming.

“Many of these students have never had the opportunity to see what it would be like to go to a Health Sciences campus and learn health professions. So providing that opportunity for them just to catch a vision of what is possible, is important,” said Taylor.

The Weeneebayko Area Health Authority has teamed up with Queen’s University to develop a Health Education Campus in Moosonee. Initially, enrollment was planned to start as of September 2025. That has now been pushed to September 2026 due to delays in the initial planning phase. 

The collaboration was made possible, in part, thanks to a $31-million donation from the Mastercard Foundation. But, Taylor says they’re still in discussions with the provincial and federal governments to secure more funding.

Chum encourages other students to enroll in the program, “They don’t have to move away from their home and they don’t have to rethink their choices in life, whether it’s education or whether it’s what they want to do.”