Media.Knet.Ca

Myknet.org

continues to be a popular resource for people across the region, especially the young people who are reading, writing and sharing their stories on-line. We are getting letters and e-mail messages from people who are using this on-line service for different purposes. Below is a sampling of some of the comments and stories that some people are sharing about myknet.org. It is important for everyone to understand that this service was created and is being maintained by the people who are using it. The K-Net team consists of everyone who uses these services and who helps make these resources a healthy on-line space for everyone else, especially the young people who enjoy visiting these web pages.

From one of the personal homepages …

Hello to everyone checking out my homepage. I just love this K-Net stuff. I’ve had an account for probably a year and a half now. There are so many Moose Factory people with accounts! It’s good to know what is happening with everyone. And you hear it right from them. … By viewing the homepages I’m getting first-hand information. I’m learning about people that I see around but that I normally wouldn’t talk to, simply because I don’t know them! That’s why I love it, it’s a good vehicle for communication.

I also check out the other homepages from different communities. I get to keep in touch with people from Peawanuck too. I’ve even gotten to correspond with some people from Saskatchewan and northwestern Ontario. There’s so many good homepages out there. It’s fun trying to figure out how to do the neat stuff that you see on their pages. I don’t mind sharing information once I learn it …. (November 21, 2003)

A personal e-mail message from a mother …

I would like to thank Knet for all their work with homepages and introducing all the services that they have on Knet. … some of the contents on the homepages are not so bad but a message from the youth on expressing their thoughts and feelings. About a month ago, my son posted his message about his feelings about depression. I was getting worried about what he had put there. It made me start thinking.

Then a crisis happened in his life and from there I arranged for him to start getting the help that he needs. If I didn't see what he had posted I wouldn't have gone to get help for him. He was thinking about suicide and was very close to attempting. And therefore I am happy that he’s getting the help that he needs now. Maybe it would have been too late if it weren't for Knet homepages. I applaud Knet for their internet services. Thank you very much.

I would encourage the parents to keep checking their young people’s homepages for the content.

Another personal e-mail message from a father …

A lot of people are enjoying the knet site especially myknet.org home pages. My kids are using these tools to communicate to friends, cousins and family in other communities. Knet is doing great stuff, just thought I'd share this with you

Another personal e-mail message from a mother …

I guess he noticed the smile on my face as I was going through the updates on the hp's [homepages]. I go through knet almost everyday to visit my son & daughter's hp's and among other relatives from the other communities.

Another personal homepage clip …

This KNET place iz pretty cool. Anywayz, still getting used to making pagez but check out the menu to visit sitez I already have up. There'z a new forum! Check it out and meet other savvvy Nishnobz like yourself *winking* You can read my latest THOUGHTZ at blogspot.com. Well thatz it for now.. (Nov 24, 2003)

The Resiliency Workbook for Survivors of Residential School (PDF document, 143K) is the publication produced for the survivors attending the gathering at Pelican Falls in May 2002. Sunset Aboriginal Women’s Circle sponsored the project with funding support from the Anglican Church and the funding groups that supported the gathering.

The development of this workbook came from all the stories that everyone shared during this event. There is a lot of discussions surrounding the concept of resiliency of residential school survivors. The workbook uses some of the information from the stories told by the conference participants during the large sharing circles at this gathering.

The workbook puts these stories and experiences together into a format that can hopefully be used by survivors of residential schools to assist everyone to develop their own resiliency story. It provides Residential School survivors with another tool to use on their healing journey.

Everyone is invited to complete each of the four exercises contained in the workbook. Exercise #4 provides an opportunity to submit your completed resiliency story to be posted on-line and shared with other residential school survivors. These resiliency stories are being gathered and posted so they can be shared with others who are still working on their own healing and development. This workbook and the resulting stories will be used to support Native families in their efforts to raise healthy children and build their communities from http://raisingthechildren.knet.ca web site.

The Sioux Lookout Nishnawbe Gamik Friendship Centre launched the Anokeewin Wiichiiwaawin Employment Centre web site with a ceremony and feast honouring the nine youth selected as the first role models for their new portal. The web site is located at http://workhere.ca

K-Net staff (Jesse Fiddler and Cal Kenny) worked with Anokeewin Wiichiiwaawin Employment Centre staff members (Melisse Wilson and Nadine Arpin) to create this web site. The celebration included a live video conference link with the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Thunder Bay office where two of the role models are able to join the ceremony (see the news story posted at http://firstnationschools.ca).

Each role model was recognized with a short biography read by Nadine Arpin with a gift being presented by the Friendship Centre's Executive Director, Laura Wynne. The on-line video clip containing a few words of wisdom from each role model was also viewed by the guests in attendance at this event. Afterwards a feast was hosted by the Friendship Centre for everyone in attendance.

On Thursday, November 27, Indian and Northern Affairs Canada Minister Robert Nault announced Health Canada's $3.4 million dollar contribution towards the expansion of the KO Telehealth initiative. The project will support all 24 First Nation Health Centres in the Sioux Lookout Zone to develop telemedicine resources over the next 2.5 years. The announcement took place in Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Balmertown office. It was webcast live on K-Net with the KO First Nations linked into the event via video conference.

Everyone is invited to watch this event on-line. Click here to watch the archived web cast.

Keewaytinook Internet High School November Newsletter is now available on-line.

Click here to open the PDF document (520kb).

The November 27 issue of Wawatay News contains three more news stories about the work being completed within the Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations demonstration project.

This week's issue of the

Kuh-ke-nah page in Wawatay News include the following articles:

• Workshops lead to each community’s ICT goals
: Over the past three years a series of community engagement workshops have been held in each of the KO First Nations to review and plan for the use of ICTs in each of the major service sectors. Raymond Mason, Keewaywin’s e-Centre Manager and Darlene Rae, North Spirit Lake’s e-Centre Manager share their experiences and the information about these workshops.
• Aboriginal Smart Fair will highlight K-Net’s ICT successes
: Keewaytinook Okimakanak is hosting a special 1 day showcase to demonstrate and share the work and information about the different initiatives being undertaken in the Smart Communities project. Industry Canada and First Nations reps from across Northern Ontario, Manitoba and elsewhere are invited to participate in this Smart Fair (for more information http://smart.knet.ca/fair).
• K-Net Showcase
- contains photos from the K-Net photo gallery at

http://photos.knet.ca with images of more of the First Nation organizations who are partnering with K-Net to create innovative applications and deliver services with the communities across Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Rick Garrick is researching additional stories for future articles. If you have a story that you want to share about this project and the work that is happening in your community to get connected, please send us an e-mail.

Various newspaper articles are being scanned and stored for reference purposes

in this photo gallery.

Sandy Lake 1st Annual Invitational

Pee Wee & Bantam

Hockey Tournament

January 15, 16, 17, 2004

Host Teams

Sandy Lake Skyfalcons

Sandy Lake Ice Wolves

ENTRY FEE: $500.00

Trophies and Medallions will be presented.

For further information contact:

Ozzie Kakepetum
Sandy Lake Recreation Office
(807) 774-5445

or

Harvey Kakegamic
(807) 774-1309

Three Turning Point volunteers: Victoria Freeman, Mary Alice Smith, Dorothy Christian and a colleague, Jessie Sutherland, were invited to attend the Caux conference by Initiatives of Change Canada. Ms. Sutherland had attended Caux for five weeks in the summer of 2002 as a ‘Caux scholar’ and recommended Turning Point volunteers as speakers and delegates to the August 12-17 , 2003 conference. The conference provided an opportunity to share lessons learned in working with K-Net and the Turning Point web environment.

See the report from the conference written by Mary Alice Smith.

Ms. Freeman and Smith are founding coordinator/moderators. Dorothy Christian was invited as an Advisor to the Turning Point website, at its inception, and has been the main volunteer moderator of the Talking Circle for the past year. After visiting the website in January 2003, Jessie Sutherland contacted us to explore our shared interests in reconciliation between indigenous and settler peoples in Canada.

The conference host, Initiatives of Change, was founded as the ‘Moral Rearmament’ movement in the 1930’s. It is a global network of "people of different faiths engaged in the every-day process of ‘remaking the world’". IOC , maintained largely by volunteers and donations with a minimum of structured organization, "helps people to become agents of change, using their homes, through conferences, seminars, training courses, publications, music and stage productions, or some other action to address a need in their community or country. " (see attached appendices/handouts from IOC for further background).

The conference theme for the week that we attended was ‘Conflict Prevention through Human Security" responding to the 1993 UNDP Development Report. Over fifty countries were represented - "a very eclectic mix of peoples from diverse cultures, faiths, nationalities and age groups."

The invitation letter outlined the theme as follows:

• Understanding peoples’ fears and needs, and preventing outbreaks of violence can break the vicious cycle of insecurity and violence. Prevention depends on many things, including acknowledgement of past wrongs and current fears, addressing root causes, rectifying serious imbalances in the quality of life experienced, and improving environmental sustainability.
• The significance of this theme in Caux is to express how personal experience and insight can help to further the notion of human security. Central to this is the necessity for interaction amongst conference participants, and between speakers and their audience.

On Thursday, Nov 20, Kevin Pashuk (NOMS IT Director), Bob Angell (Lakehead U. IT Director) and Bill Sandblom (Laurentian U. IT Director) drove with Tom Hibbs (Corporate Accounts, Enterprise Solutions, Nortel Networks) to Sioux Lookout to meet with K-Net staff and learn about the Kuh-ke-nah Network. The team is touring Northern Ontario to meet with different community-based networks to learn about the existing infrastructure and resources available across this vast region. Check out the pictures of this crew

The role of partnerships and the sharing of resources and opportunities is one of the most important outcomes from all the work with these communication tools. This meeting provided another opportunity to see how institutions, corporations and organizations can work together to support the development of infrastructure and the access to resources so everyone benefits.

The cliche "Putting some meaning into the C that is in the middle of ICT" is the challenge that everyone faces with these new tools. It is COMMUNICATION that provides the important link between Information and Technology; it is the "glue" that makes this work worthwhile for the people and the communities. If we do not have meaningful and effective communication that helps build practical, efficient and respectful relationships then we just have a bunch of machines being used to toss a lot of information at each other and being "managed" by IT Directors and technicians located in far away places.

One important outcome of this meeting was the agreement to work together to identify strategies and access the necessary resources to support the development of adequate distance learning facilities in all the communities across Northern Ontario. This effort will require the partnership of every community and government agency to ensure equitable and affordable solutions are created. Being able to accommodate students from NOMS or Lakehead or any institution is a major challenge that will create employment in both the development of these facilities and then in the ongoing maintenance and operation of these distance learning spaces including the residential component.

The innovative communication tools and infrastructure required to provide an environment where students and community members can share and create new opportunities for everyone will position Northern Ontario as the place to be doing business. We will be able to boast full employment and healthy communities across the region by levering and sharing these resources with everyone. The Northern Ontario Medical School and our two post-secondary institutions provide a great opportunity for every community in Northern Ontario to be creating a healthy socio-economic environment for all residents!

Thursday morning (Nov 20), Carl Seibel (FedNor's Telecom Officer) brought Jacques Hains, the FedNor Liaison Officer from Ottawa over to Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Thunder Bay office for meetings with different members of the KO Smart team from across Northwestern Ontario. Brian Walmark, KO's SchoolNet Special Projects Coordinator hosted the meeting from his office on the fourth floor at 135 N. Syndicate Avenue that he shares with Conduit Technologies and Northern Nishnawbe Education Council.

First stop on the virtual tour was the KO office in Sioux Lookout, where Carl and Jacques met with K-Net staff to discuss the work that has been completed to date as well as the socio-economic opportunities that the FedNor investments bring to the region and especially the remote First Nations in the far north. Then Dan used the video conferencing bridge to bring in the Fort Severn Smart team at their e-Centre in their community. Later Dan dropped in on the North Spirit Lake e-Centre and Darlene joined the discussions about the impact they are witnessing that these communication tools are having on their communities.

Check out the story that Brian Walmark posted on the http://firstnationschools.ca portal