Melissa MacDonald and Alanea Holmstrom are two dynamic young women who are quickly becoming catalysts for change in their communities.

MacDonald, of Membertou First Nation in Nova Scotia, is currently Lands Director and Tax Administrator for the Band. She began her Tulo education in 2022 and completed her certificate this year.

Holmstrom is currently Tax Administrator at Osoyoos Indian Band in southern B.C. She started with Tulo in 2018 in the Tax Certificate program, took Applied Land Management in 2019 and the First Nations Applied Economics program in 2024.

Both women took part in a once-in-a-lifetime exchange program with fellow Tulo Centre students and Maori communities in New Zealand. (Read news release.)

They both credit the trip and other program elements as a launching pad for their own career growth, and for supporting economic development and infrastructure growth in their home communities.

FNII podcast host Richard Perry caught up with them earlier this summer.