Northern Development offers community support through internships

February 12, 2024

Since 2009, Northern Development Initiative Trust has offered several internship programs, each designed to provide a high level of professional development and hands-on training that help prepare recent graduates with the skills, experience and connections they need to propel their career forward.

2009 – 2015 : Economic Development Internship Program*
2013 – Present: Local Government Internship Program
2015: Local Government Planning Internship Program*
2017 – Present: Indigenous Government Internship Program
2020 – 2021: Business Development Internship Program(Pilot)*
*Retired Programs

To date, Northern Development has funded 128 interns and 53 of those are currently working in local or Indigenous government.

Northern Development recently welcomed Wendy Okoye to the team. Working as a Economic Development Coordinator, Wendy will focus a lot of her time developing the local and Indigenous government internships program.

“I am happy to be part of the NDIT team working on the Internship Program. Virtually meeting and interacting with our current Interns has been such a wonderful and informative experience for me,” said Okoye. “I work with such a great team that puts in so much passion and hard work to ensure that the internship program is a success to both the interns and the host communities. I am excitedly looking forward to meet the new interns for the 2024/2025 program and go through this journey with them, offering my assistance in anyway that it is needed.”

The Village of Masset currently has its first ever intern, Andalib Olee and the experience has been a positive one.

“At first, we weren’t sure what to expect, and the commitment required for a small Village with limited resources could be a real challenge,” said Village of Masset CAO Joshua Humphries. “We selected Andalib for several reasons, and over the year, he has been tasked with a few projects for which, with his help, we have successfully met our goals. We would recommend the program as it has been a real benefit to our community, and we will continue to look at this as a resource that we can tap into.”

Applications for the next internship program will be accepted until February 15, 2024.