In April, New Gold employees from New Afton, Rainy River, and the Corporate office met in Vancouver to participate in the 2025 Indspire Soaring: Indigenous Youth Empowerment Gathering. The annual two-day event brought high school students from across the country together to learn about career and post-secondary education opportunities through workshops, presentations, and a career fair with some of Canada’s top employers. Throughout, students were exposed to a variety of inspirational and educational materials, while fostering a network of peer-to-peer support.
“There were First Nation youth from all over Canada there,” said Sherry Sinclair, Community Advisor at New Gold’s Rainy River Mine. “I heard from a few participants that, before Soaring, they were unsure of what to do with their lives, and after visiting all the vendors they now had a more concrete idea of how to achieve their training and education goals.”
New Gold proudly sponsored this year’s event once again, as part of a longstanding partnership with Indspire—a national Indigenous registered charity that invests in the education of First Nations, Inuit and Métis youth for the long-term benefit of these individuals, their families, communities, and Canada. Since 2011, New Gold has invested over $469,000 with Indspire, sponsoring Soaring, Indspire Awards, and the Building Brighter Futures (BBF) Bursaries and Scholarships Award program.
“Soaring is a great event for our youth and by investing in our youth we are enriching our own communities, our towns and even our country,” added Sherry.
New Gold employees engaged with Indigenous youth to discuss careers in mining and, in doing so, found opportunities to learn from one another. For Community Relations Coordinator Devan Swaine, the event was about shared learnings.
“Getting the chance to get to know and work with the Rainy River Indigenous Relations team and share knowledge with the next generation of Indigenous youth was an incredibly rewarding experience that I won’t forget,” said Devan. “I look forward to more opportunities to participate with Rainy River and share learnings”.
New Gold also works with Indspire to reduce education barriers for Indigenous youth through Indspire’s BBF Bursaries and Scholarships Award program. This multi-year commitment channels over $26,000 per year in funding to Indigenous students who are attending post-secondary institutions in the communities where New Gold operates. Eligible programming includes engineering, environmental studies, sustainability-related programming, and trades.
To learn more about Soaring or BBF Bursaries and Scholarships, visit https://indspire.ca/.
