A Better Winnipeg Together

17
Full Circle
Olga Rusnak stopped
going to school after
Grade 9 in Winnipeg’s
Point Douglas
neighbourhood.
FROM POVERTY TO POSSIBILITY
“I was needed at home more than going to school, so I couldn’t finish my
education. I come from a big family and I looked after my younger brothers
and sisters.”
She always regretted not graduating, and worked in retail most of her adult life.
“I was working, but I wasn’t getting very much money. I lived from paycheque
to paycheque.”
Olga wanted more. She dreamed of a career working with children and told
her husband John she needed an education to make it happen.
“He gave me the support and said, ‘In your heart if you really want to do this
I will support you.’”
Olga followed her heart to Urban Circle Training Centre. In 2009 she
graduated Grade 12, and in 2010 earned her Education Assistant certificate.
Today she works at Makoonsag Intergenerational Children’s Centre — Urban
Circle’s on-site childcare for students — and is working towards her Early
Childhood Education certificate through Red River College.
“It all started at Urban Circle. Getting my education, the support, the
encouragement. I’m so proud of where I am.”
Haven Stumpf, Urban Circle’s Director of
Operations and a 1996 graduate, says their
graduation rates over the last 25 years
average around 80% with more than 90%
of graduates securing employment. The
traditional teachings of the Elders are at
the heart of students’ success, Haven says,
while job-skills training, résumé and interview
skills, asset building programs and
money management training contribute to
positive outcomes.
Haven says students and grads like Olga,
“where there’s this incredible courage to
keep going,” create a shared success. “We
form a family within the Circle of Life. We
all come to the Circle of Learning with life
knowledge and we learn from one another.”
“They talk about the culture and healing
processes and I needed that — to heal from
growing up and the anxieties that I had in
me. I had no faith in myself.”
— Olga Rusnak
UNITED WAY WINNIPEG ANNUAL REPORT 2015–16