City Council recently brought Mackenzie Kerr along with them to the North Central Local Government Association AGM. She’s the first person to ever participate in the recently established Student Mentorship Program.
Three selected students will tag along to municipal, provincial, and national conferences in Terrace, Vancouver, and Ottawa, respectively.
While attending the first of the three conferences, Kerr admits she had to often explain that she wasn’t actually a part of City Council. Revealing that she was only there to observe, many other communities told her what a great idea this program is and their plans to implement it back home. Based on her positive experience, she hopes that other communities do begin similar arrangements.
“I am honoured that I was the first one to try out this opportunity and kind of lay the bricks for any other communities that were thinking of including youth in their trips and their conventions because it’s definitely an asset to bring the youth voice to the table,” she says, “It’s definitely worth it to bring a youth along and get them involved in local politics. Maybe it’ll give them a spark to become even more involved and interested in local government and maybe even provincial or federal government one day.”
Kerr just recently graduated from CNC with a diploma in Natural Resource and Environmental Technology. She’s heading the UNBC in the fall to continue her forestry studies, with minors in environmental studies and political sciences. For someone with a similar background, passion, and desire to one day be on City Council, Kerr recommends this experience.
“It just opened my eyes to a lot of other things that youth sometimes don’t understand that they talked about at these conventions and making resolutions and passing them and how the whole process works. That will help me in my in my future career in local government.”
Kerr will soon be visiting northern communities to speak abut agriculture and forestry, thanks to connections she made at the AGM.