Tuition program proves its worth

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This article was published 09/10/2012 (4909 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A single mother who dropped out of school after spending half her life in a series of foster homes — a likely candidate to graduate from university?

For sure.

“I want to send a very positive message to youth coming out of care — I did it, you can do it,” Janna Fowles said.

Fowles is in her third year of a combined arts and education program at the University of Winnipeg that will eventually put her at the front of a classroom teaching in a First Nations school.

She’s the oldest student among 24 U of W students formerly in care whose tuition is being waived in a new scholarship program launched this fall.

The province is also covering textbooks, housing and meals through grants from Children and Youth Opportunities Minister Kevin Chief.

“U of W being there for you is so amazing. All of us, we are so grateful,” said Fowles.

“I was in care for a very long time,” said Fowles, who lived in and went to various schools in Winnipeg, Brandon and Ste. Anne. “It was July of 1996 when I first went into care. I was 10. I bounced foster home to foster home, city to city.

“I remained in care until the day I turned 18.”

Fowles had just started Grade 12 when she became an adult, no longer in care, no longer supported by the province. She worked an overnight shift in a fast-food restaurant while going to school. But after three weeks and realizing she couldn’t do both, she chose a paycheque over school.

Forward to 2008: “I was pregnant with my first child and that got me to go back to school,” Fowles said.

School was the Aboriginal Community Campus on Higgins Avenue, where she finished Grade 12 and was inspired to go to university.

Fowles received several scholarships, arranged student loans and got help from the Aboriginal Community Campus. “I applied for everything I could.”

Getting ready for third year, the 26-year-old Fowles heard about U of W’s new program, which was supposed to be for only 10 students a year, and only for students 18 to 20 years old entering their first year.

That didn’t stop Fowles.

“I applied and I got it,” she said.

Fowles studies toward her two degrees three semesters a year — rather than two semesters a year as most students do — so her annual tuition waiver is worth about $5,000.

The province’s assistance covers about 70 per cent of her other school and living costs.

“We are able to pick up our books and supplies. We’re told we’re going to be getting a laptop,” she said. “It makes an amazing difference. It means the world.”

Her sons, four-year-old Isaiah and one-year-old Immanuel, are both in the U of W Students’ Association daycare.

“I want to do big things,” said Fowles, who’s specializing in middle years education and majoring in history in her arts program.

She’ll teach “anywhere I can get a job, hopefully on a reserve.”

“I definitely want to go into aboriginal history — in school now, there is no aboriginal history.”

Fowles mentors younger students through the Métis Child and Family Services and she wants to make sure young people in care know about the U of W program so they don’t despair of being able to go on to university, regardless of their circumstances.

nick.martin@freepress.mb.ca