Manitoba Aboriginal and Northern Affairs (ANA) Local Government Development Division - Northern Region has hired on a number of new employees recently.
One of these new acquisitions is Vanessa Nedd, the manager of engineering services who is based in the Thompson ANA office. Nedd, a licensed civil engineer and project management professional, graduated with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering from the University of Guyana, where she is originally from, in 1988. She made her arrival in Canada in January of 2004.
"When I came to Canada it was just a matter of looking at my transcripts and making sure they were acceptable to Canada, and then I had an interview for licensure for engineeringI was happy that Canada acknowledges our work that we do at the University of Guyana," Nedd explains.
Nedd and her husband moved from Toronto, where she worked as an engineer with Vale Inco, in May 2007. She says she asked for a transfer to Thompson because she was excited about the quality of life the community had to offer.
"This is what we chose because we like the tranquility of Canada. It's quiet, it's not too muchthis is what we like, and this is what we'd like for our family. This is the place we had in mind to raise a family," she explains, adding that she hasn't yet gotten used to the cold winters, but is really enjoying the Northern summers.
Originally Nedd came to Thompson to work for Vale Inco, but decided to make the switch over to ANA because it reflected her ten years of experience designing and supervising municipal projects in private consulting, government ministries and mining sectors in Botswana, Guyana and Canada.
Nedd and her team of four technical staff that work with her are responsible for 17 different communities throughout Northern Manitoba, ensuring each place has correct water treatment and sewage plants, arenas and safe roads and infrastructure.
"Everyone is assigned a number of communities and they're responsible to make sure infrastructure is okay. So even if we don't get an emergency call or something, it's mandated for us to go out and check that everything is okay," Nedd explains. "You have to build relationships and let them see that you care and so on. In most of the communities, when they have their council meetings, we go just to see what some of the problems are that they're having aside from infrastructures, to know about the community and get to know and meet the people."
Nedd says the people she's met on First Nations communities have been very friendly and open to new ideas, and also willing to put the work in to make their communities better places to live.
She also says she and her husband have been enjoying the lifestyle Thompson has to offer and the friendly people they've come to know.
"We lived in Toronto for three years, and we did not know that many people, or have as many friends as we have made in these two short years in ThompsonToronto was so bigit's just huge, and it was work and then home, and you didn't get much time to socialize. But now we found wonderful things like our church, we have game night, we do so many thingswe have never experienced life like this in Canada until we came to Thompson," she explains.
Nedd says she and the other new staff members are still settling into their roles and learning the ropes, but is very hopeful for the work they have planned in the future.