History

The Nzen'man' Child and Family Development Centre Society (non-profit, charitable organization) was created in 1993 after extensive community consultation regarding the need to address our shared history and devasting impacts as a result of generations of our children attending St. Georges Residential School which operated in our community for over 80 years. Nzen’man’ recognizes that our children are the centre of our communities and the heart of our Nation’s future. Our shared responsibility as a community and as a Nation is to ensure that our programs and services are based on our Nlaka’pamux ways of being and knowing so that the children of today and those yet to come grow up to be happy, healthy, and safe.

We started our journey by partnering with the School of Child and Youth Care and the Nicola Valley Institute of Technology to deliver a community-based Early Childhood Education Program. As a result of this initiative, a number of community members became qualified Early Childhood Educators and many stayed with Nzen’man’ to help design and deliver our licensed child care program and many of the programs we offer today.

We have been successful in securing funding from a wide variety of sources to deliver our programs and build our capacity. We could not do this without the relationships we have with our local Bands and Organizations and we raise our hands up to everyone who shares our vision of creating a new future for all of our children to thrive.

Board of Directors

As a non-profit charitable organization, we have an active 6 member Board of Directors. Each Board Member is elected by members of the Society for a two year term.

The Current Board of Directors include: