PM#0382659799
Constance Lake culture camp has students learning traditional skills PAGE 11 Vol. 39 No. 37
Youth centre to help northern students in Thunder Bay PAGE 12 9,300 copies distributed $1.50
November 8, 2012
www.wawataynews.ca
Northern Ontario’s First Nation Voice since 1974
KI youth bring message of hope on Ontario tour
The peoples’ choice
Shawn Bell Wawatay News
Nadya Kwandibens/Special to Wawatay News
Thunder Bay singer-songwriter Shy-Anne Hovorka raked in six Aboriginal Peoples Choice music awards in Winnipeg last week, including female entertainer of the year, best music video and best country album. See story on page 10.
Elton Beardy is a young man, only recently graduated from high school. But he already speaks with an air of wisdom, of experience gained through seeing so many challenges and staying strong. Over the next two weeks Beardy is speaking for his community of Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug (KI) in a number of southern Ontario cities, along with five other youth who know the reality of growing up in the northern First Nation. Despite the challenges he has faced, Beardy does not speak with bitterness about the conditions that youth from KI experience. He is bringing a message of hope to the south, a message of unity. “There is still hope for change. What happened in the past, we can move forward from,” Beardy said. “If we can educate ourselves about each other, if we can come to a common understanding with a common goal for
change, there can still be harmony.” Beardy and the other youth from KI are part of a speaking tour that starts in Toronto on Nov. 8. The tour is based around the film 3rd World Canada, the 2010 documentary on living conditions and suicides in KI, told through the stories of youth and children in the community. The seeds of the current tour sprouted during screenings in Thunder Bay and Ottawa in 2010, when the youth from KI realized that their stories were having not only an impact on the audiences who watched the film, but on their families in KI and on themselves. “During the screening in Ottawa, when I looked out to the audience, you could see how it affected them,” Beardy said. “And just hearing the positive response we got from the community members about how they feel about the film, the experience really changed me. I can definitely say that this film could act as a catalyst for change in peoples lives as well, not just as nations but as individuals.” See KI youth on page 3