That's a very insightful question. At FNTI, we haven't targeted women to come to our program, but it's a result of the culture that we create.
When I started in aviation, in my training 29 years ago, I was the only female student. We had all male flight instructors, we had all male executives, we had all male management. Everything was male. My experience was okay. It wasn't the greatest. When I look back now, I know it could have been better.
Even then, I didn't even know a female pilot, let alone a female indigenous pilot, to have as a role model. My husband is here today. He went to school with me. He's an Air Canada pilot. When we started, we didn't have any indigenous mentors. What we've done at our school is create indigenous mentors by celebrating successes of people in the program. When one of our students goes solo, we post it on Facebook and it goes viral. We say, “Here's Kayla. She's from north of Thunder Bay. She just went solo.”
It goes viral because indigenous youth see themselves in the faces of our students. They see it's working. They see the co-operation at our school and they all want to be a part of it, so it's more inviting. I believe female indigenous mentors will promote more women in aviation, as well as having women in senior executive positions in aviation.
I believe for myself, and Kendra as well, that being in those positions really helps us create an inclusive environment.