Indigenous Training Success November 2022

The got mold?™ training program on Education for Finding and Fixing Sources of Unhealthy Indoor Air has been extremely active this year and has taken the team to many different communities across Western Canada. For many of the communities it was a brand-new experience getting to learn about mold, asbestos, and radon awareness, testing, and remediation, as well as get hands-on experience in the field. Not only are students and participants getting the knowledge and skills training from our program, but also the resources and support to make positive change within their communities by tackling issues associated with unhealthy indoor air. One of our greatest successes this year has been with Lubicon Lake Band.  

We have been invited back to Little Buffalo AB for training at Lubicon Lake Band #453 four times now. First with initial training back in late March of 2022, and then we were invited back to work closely with Housing Manager Clifford Laboucan and band member Ty Cardinal, who has now performed 21 house inspections in the community. With Ty, we have been working on writing reports, and creating scopes of work for all the houses assessed between himself and other students. Mr. Cardinal has and continues to learn more on how to effectively assess, sample and provide the community, and other communities, with all supporting documentation required to apply for the much-needed funding to clean up mold, asbestos and other issues that may be present.

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We were then invited back for another week of training for mold remediation strategies. The intent of the second training was to train and recruit the best of the best from the community for doing the remediation work required to bring houses back to a healthy state with a normal fungal ecology. We now have two trained and competent individuals from the community who are ready to work to better the health of the community.

We have also been working closely with housing manager Mr. Clifford Laboucan on a newly founded pilot project. The pilot project is geared towards making six older stick-built homes energy efficient. There is a big push for energy efficiency from the Federal Government of Canada, therefore, we have decided to take on this task with housing at Lubicon. We are very excited for this project to come to fruition and will provide updates with success stories in the future.  

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All trades required to assist in the pilot project were contacted, vetted, and lined up by Housing Manager Clifford Laboucan. Mr. Laboucan has been working hard to get all the trades lined up and quotes provided. We have enjoyed working with Lubicon Lake Band and look forward to sharing our success story of the energy efficiency pilot project as we move forward.  

Our upcoming training with other First Nations is bringing very exciting times to the got mold?™ team. We wrapped up training for Sawridge First Nation on Treaty 8 Territory and found many issues that we are working on along with the band to clean up mold and asbestos concerns. As soon as we were done, we moved onto Lubicon Lake Band for additional training and recruitment.  

We then travelled to Beautiful British Columbia to Witset First Nation, part of the Wet’suwet’en treaty group on October 3rd for another wonderful week of training. The lands are beautiful, the people are super accommodating, generous and smile all the time. We had such a lovely time in  Moricetown/Witset.

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Our training program is ramping up and garnering lots of attention, therefore, Mr. Ty Cardinal from Lubicon Lake Band has been hired to come assist with training and has attended the last three training programs as well was a top student in the very first Lubicon training event. The students were very impressed with Ty and his ability to step them through the inspections and sampling portion of the training. This hands-on training is typically what the students love most. Well, that and the joking around and fun we have in class is pretty awesome and the students love this as well. We look forward to doubling our efforts with Ty becoming a new Trainer for got mold? ™. Mr. Cardinal is very eager to help his community and other communities with the mold contamination struggles they may have.   

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We are currently working very hard on a couple new training programs that are much needed for Indigenous communities. Since operations and maintenance funding is very limited, or non-existent for housing in First Nations furnaces and duct cleaning is being neglected due to this lack of funding and contributes to poor, unhealthy indoor air quality. We are working on a curriculum around furnace and duct cleaning and are looking for a partner to assist with this. We hope to be offering this training within the end of first quarter of 2023. Once we have the Furnace & Duct cleaning training underway, we plan to move onto meth lab cleanup training. This is another major concern in some First Nations communities. We have much more in store for the future but it will take time to make sure we are planning for the next seven generations.

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Watch for our future updates and success stories related to the First Nations communities we serve. Also keep your eyes open for the new branding for our Indigenous training programs.  

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