A very successful trip was made to Lynn Lake, Manitoba by members of Northern Manitoba Sector Council and TechMB to deliver TechMB’s Computer Basics training—after a year of planning, switching dates, pandemic restrictions and finally a blitz of coordinating and gathering from the team. With incredible support from Michael Raess at Alamos Gold located in Lynn Lake, the two-day training occurred over September 5th and 6th—the long weekend.
The venture began when Glenn Laycock of NMSC, Michael Raess, and Paula Canas of Tech MB were able to connect over identifying a need for technology and tech basics in the community and neighboring First Nation, Marcel Colomb First Nation.
In an effort to support the remote communities, the three organizations formed a team that not only delivered the training, but with support from Computers for Schools, delivered 24 laptops ready for use to the training participants. It was made possible with use of the Corner Pocket Billiards Hall, a location used for many community events, and lunch delivery from Jim Shortt – hall owner, business owner, and Lynn Lake mayor.
The day before training started, Kunal Mahajan, instructor for Tech MB, and Holly Martin, Project Coordinator for NMSC packed up a rental truck with all the needed supplies for a successful training, including extension cords, masks, hand sanitizers, snacks, the 24 laptops, and 4 desktop computers for MCFN.
Day one, the team of 3 (Kunal, Holly and Michael) set up the hall and prepared it for the next two days of training. 24 work stations were set up, and by second day, 22 participant
s had come and used them for training in how to operate them and peripheral accessories like USB flash drives, mice and keyboards.
With Day two ending in tremendous success, it was an honor for the team to deliver news to the participants that the laptops they had been using were officially theirs to keep.
It is the hope of all involved, that the team will be able to deliver more advanced training in coming months.