MLA: HON MELANIE WIGHT - BURROWS * MINISTER OF CHILDREN AND YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES

Dear Lord, thank you for our MLA Hon Melanie Wight. Thank you for the heart you have given her to work with youth and children in need. May Melanie continue to be a strong voice for them and may she continue to see the positive changes she has seen in the past and see her desire for healthy communities be fulfilled. Bless Melanie and her family. In Jesus' Name, Amen.
 
“Manitoba is proof that a strong social conscience and strong economic growth can coexist. Continuing to work together to improve the lives of all families in Burrows is my number 1 priority. Let’s keep building a province that makes us proud.”

As Burrows new MLA, Melanie brings a wealth of experience to the Manitoba legislature. She has been working in the child welfare field since the 1990s, when she began managing an emergency foster home for boys in the North End of Winnipeg. For the past 16 years, she has worked for MacDonald Youth Services at a recovery unit for adolescent boys involved in crime. Her experiences have taught her first-hand how the right interventions can create positive change in the lives of crime-involved youth and improve the health of entire communities.

Melanie also has experience in the corporate world with a local commercial development firm where she worked as corporate asset manager for the continental region.

Melanie Wight was born in Melita and spent her childhood and adolescence on a farm just outside of Napinka. She moved to Winnipeg at age 18 and earned a BA from the University of Manitoba with a focus on psychology, sociology and criminology. She has also attended Red River Community College where she trained to become a certified youth care worker.

She looks forward to helping make Burrows an even better, more affordable place to live and raise a family.
More about Melanie

• Passionate about education and has taken a number of courses in areas like mental health First Aid, youth and suicide, cultural awareness, Aboriginal culture, and theatre;
• Has been a core trainer for youth care workers and recently become a trainer for the Red Cross RespectEd program, designed to prevent abuse in youth relationships;
• An experienced group facilitator and counsellor;
• An accomplished speaker who also performs periodically in theatrical productions
• Appointed to the board of directors for the Rehabilitation Centre for Children and acts as the board’s representative to the Children’s Rehabilitation Foundation;
• Vice-president of the Child and Youth Care Workers Association of Manitoba, and
• For 20 years, has worked and lived in Winnipeg’s North End, where she raised her daughter.