#53: Find a local organization that has Indigenous programming.

In many areas, that is the Native Friendship Centre.

The Friendship Centre Movement started in the 1950s as a reaction to the large movement of Indigenous people moving from reserves to urban centres for a variety of reasons, largely health care and employment. In the 1970s a National organization was established to ease the communication with the Federal Government. The mandate of the Friendship Centres is to provide the services and programming that the urban Indigenous people are in need of in that particular area and to bridge the gap between non-Indigenous and Indigenous people. Two of the my absolute favourite things about Friendship Centres is that they are a status blind and non-partisan organizations. By leaving the government appointed identities and politics at the door, it provides the space needed to focus on better the lives of all who walk through those very doors.

Two weeks ago, I was very fortunate to be one of four individuals that were acclimated to the board of the Nistawoyou Association Friendship Centre in Fort McMurray. Friendship Centres have been a major part of my life since 1999. As an urban First Nation person, who has spent relatively little time on my reserves which are located in Desmarais, Alberta and Calling Lake, Alberta (Bigstone Cree Nation is quite spread out), I struggled like many to connect with my culture and sought it out, as my identity was developing as a youth. My first recollection of the Athabasca Native Friendship Centre was when I was a small child and my mother brought me into this little store front shop where the Friendship Centre was at the time located (this would be around 1990) to show me a quilt made by Bertha Clarke Jones. I'll remember that quilt until the day I die, it was huge and there was a big maple leaf in the middle. Soon afterwards we moved to Montreal, and every time I saw a bright red maple leaf, I thought of that quilt. 

When I moved back to Athabasca, the Athabasca Native Friendship Centre invited me in, a misfit from Montreal in the little farming town of Athabasca. The staff and Elders became my extended family, in particular three women: the two amazing Executive Directors during my high school years, Maxine Boisvert and Penny Van Vliet and the attached Riddles Second Hand Store manager Liz Deisting. They were all three strong women who cared deeply about the Indigenous people in Athabasca and taught many non-Indigenous people about how we can all open our eyes, ears and hearts to each other despite how far from one another we may currently feel. 

Those three women believed in me and supported me as I joined the Provincial Aboriginal Youth Council and eventually the National Aboriginal Youth Council in 2005. We were provided with extensive leadership and board training, with the hope that when we grew up we would volunteer our time at the our local Friendship Centres. I'm pretty sure it is the best leadership sustainability model on the planet, empowering youth to ensure educated and passionate leadership a decade later. Guess what, I'm now on my local board 12 years after I sat on the National Youth Council. I'm looking forward to being apart of that vision and invite every one of you to join as a member. If you do not live in Wood Buffalo seek out the Friendship Centre nearest you, there are 21 across Alberta alone!