TYENDINAGA MOHAWK TERRITORY - First Nations Technical Institute is pleased to announce an educational partnership with Toronto's Humber College Print and Broadcast Journalism Program.

The new program, Print and Broadcast Journalism - Aboriginal Profile, will launch this fall providing training and post-secondary education in print journalism, broadcast, video, radio and Aboriginal Media.

"This partnership is a positive step toward Aboriginal post-secondary institutions finally receiving recognition for the quality education they provide. We applaud Humber for their forward thinking," says Murray Maracle, FNTI's vice-president of education.

"In this new partnership with First Nations Technical Institute, we are bridging cultures and contributing to a new synergy among jounalists in the 21st century," says Dr. Robert A. Gordon, President, Humber College.

First Nations Technical Institute, located on the Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory near Belleville, Ontario, has been delivering post-secondary education since 1985. "The Aboriginal Media Program was initiated in 1997 as a print journalism program with an introduction to videography and radio. With the recent launch of the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network, there is a need for broadcast journalists," says Monique Manatch, Aboriginal media program manager at FNTI.

"We saw a lot of Aboriginal journalists get absorbed by the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network. Not just those working in the broadcast industry, but print journalists as well. I think as more of our people are trained in journalism, Aboriginal issues will be conveyed to the mainstream public in an unbiased and educational manner," says program coordinator Brant Bardy.

"We will be graduating journalists who are from First Nations' communities and who are rooted in First Nations' history," says Lynne Thomas, who teaches journalism at Humber College. "As working journalists, who better than these graduates to bring to Canadians first-hand, in-depth coverage of Aboriginal issues?"

For more information please contact Brant Bardy at (613)-396-2122, or Lynne Thomas at (416)-675-6622, ext. 4716.