METIS NA TION Of ONT ARIO Annu A l Repo R t 20122013 7 variety of T raditional Knowledge and Metis W ay of Life activities such as T raditional Knowledge gatherings and celebrations that wer e held this year e ncouraging Metis childr en and youth to be all they can be In my Pr esident s r eport at the 2012 AGA I challenged all MNO citizens to begin thinking about how we all can encourage our Metis childr en and youth to take advantage of ever y opportunity and become all they can be The MNO curr ently of fers pr ograms that help par ents expecting childr en pr eschool and school age childr en as well as young adults in postsecondar y education which is how we should look at childr en and youth as being fr om the womb to young adulthood Pr oviding ever y opportunity to our young people is not simply the r esponsibility of the PCMNO and MNO staf f Ever y MNO citizen needs to step for war d and encourage young people to be their best This may mean helping them save for a Register ed Education Savings Plan RESP or simply communicating to our sons daugh ters nieces nephews and grandchildr en that completing high school and going onto postsecondar y is not only possible but something they should expect It was ver y appr opriate that only minutes after I had issued my challenge to MNO citizens r egar ding en couraging childr en and youth that the MNO signed a Memorandum of Understanding MOU with the Offce of the Pr ovincial Advocate for Childr en and Y outh Our agr eement with the Pr ovincial Advocate compliments our success in lobbying the pr ovincial gover nment to incorporate a r eport pr oduced by the MNO about r eforming child and youth ser vices in Ontario fr om a Metis perspective into their pr eviously cr eated r eport about Aborigi nal child and youth ser vices which had unfortunately missed the Metis perspective mno p r esident l ipinski and v icechair s har on m c b ride signing t heir Oat hs of Of fce at t he 2012 a nnual General a ssembly in s aul t s te m arie