Mr. Chairman, members of the standing committee, thank you for giving Ignite the opportunity to share with you what Ignite does in Regina.
The Ignite corporation is a not-for-profit corporation. Our goal is to help young adults at risk become independent and self-supporting. We have been in existence since 1990. Our unique approach has to do with our business approach to social problems. What we want to do is to help these young adults move from dependency, poverty, and hopelessness to become self-supporting, independent, and contributing members of society.
Although our charter doesn't directly deal with first nations, we are extremely honoured to say that 90% of our clients are first nation. They come to Ignite of their own choice. They see value in what we have to deliver.
Ignite achieves its goals through training, healing, and employment. Like a business, we are open all year round. Each year we take 30 to 45 at-risk young adults from the ages of 19 to 30, and they're hired to work at Ignite. Their job is to learn—seven and a half hours a day, five days a week. Wages are deducted for lateness and absenteeism. Poor performance and chronic absenteeism are causes for dismissal from the program. We're finding that this approach prevents a lot of these young people from ending up in a situation of pain, such as jail or having to deal with the law. Our success rate is about 70% to 75% over the many years.
Let me tell you what the program includes. First of all, we have an academic component. We know that employers are not interested in somebody who doesn't have grade 12 or the equivalency. The second component has to do with computers. Computers are everywhere now. Anywhere you turn, you have to know about computers. The third component is business skills. They actually learn how to set up a company. They go through the whole process of raising capital, doing market research, coming up with a business proposal, producing a product, and marketing the product. It's an incredible program.
We also go through some financial literacy, communication components, and driver training. We have a superb mentorship program that is carried on by people in the business community. We also have a newer component to this program, which is health and wellness. This is based on the latest research by a psychiatrist, which basically says that most psychological problems can be tied to brain problems. We stress the importance of exercise and nutrition. We also help them get jobs and/or go on to further education.
What we do is not a band-aid solution. It's efficient, it saves the community a lot of money, and most importantly it helps these young people get some hope to be able to take charge of their lives and achieve goals. We see amazing things happening.
What happens to these young people after they finish the program? They become employees. They become small business owners. They are volunteers in the community. They become homeowners. They are consumers. They also pay taxes.
I don't want to take too much time going into all kinds of details, but basically that's what we do. It's actually quite simple. It's not complicated.
Thank you for giving me this time.
Mona, do you want to add something?