Media.Knet.Ca

Ga Wiianiniiganiitamagoyak Children's Centre in Deer Lake was selected to participate in a National Community Exchanges Program. This initiative was developed by Aboriginal Head Start On Reserve (AHSOR), to provide the opportunity for participants to exchange the following:

• Experience another Aboriginal Head Start project in a selected Aboriginal community in Canada;
• Learn from colleagues and aboriginal participants by visitng a site;
• New ways of delivering the program, cultural and language appreciation, expanding knowledge of the best practices in the six components inherent to the AHSOR Program criteria;
• Visit another part of Canada, experiencing new sights and learning the historical environment;
• Exchange ideas and discuss issues of mutual interest; identity and expand resource sharing; and explore trouble shooting approaches through brainstorming sessions;
• Profile your project and community with pride, by creating an awareness and appreciation of our differences and similarities.

The staff at GW Children's Centre will be travelling to Saskatoon, to meet with Saskatoon Tribal Council's Aboriginal Head Start site. The Children Centre will soon be looking for volunteers to sit on a committee to oversee the Community Exchanges Program. The Committee will be the hosting delegates, they will be showcasing the programs successes and the community of Deer Lake.

The Gathering Of Our People 2004 & Omuskego Creefest 2004

July 27 to July 31, 2004 Moose-Factory, Ontario

The Values and Living Spirits of Nookomonan and Nimooshominan Guide Us To Gather In Friendship, Unity and Goodwill; To Celebrate, Honour and Strengthen Our Cree Culture

The Activities include: Traditional Feast, Traditional Music, Dance & Drama, Step & Square Dancing, Gospel & Various Music

Alll Are Welcome To Attend

For Furthur Information Please Contact:

Moose Cree First Nation @ 705-658-4619 Or Mushkegowuk Council @ 705-658-4619

Friday, May 14th, 2004 was a day to remember for some Kasabonika Lake FN high school students from Chief Simeon McKay Memorial Education Centre.  They met with and presented gifts to Minister Rick Bartolucci, his Parliamentary Assistant, Bill Mauro MPP-Thunder Bay/Atikokan, ADM John Gammon, and their Policy Advisors and Assistants.

Minister Bartolucci had a brief meeting with Chief Gordon Anderson, Deputy Chief Eno H. Anderson, Council and Elders in the School Gym on issues of importance to the Kasabonika Lake FN and as they relate to the programs, policies, and objectives of the Ministry of Northern Development & Mines.

The Ministerial entourage looked stunning in their beaded leather vests and medicine necklaces as they departed for Webequie First Nation with additional gifts of dreamcatchers, moccasins, and gauntlets.

A commitment to entrench communication strategies, consultations, and full consideration of a Far North Resource Development Council was achieved, in addition to further visits.

The spring issue of Canada Connects celebrates the innovative work being done across Canada in the field of eHealth. The on-line version of the magazine that is scheduled to be on the news stands in June is now available. The centre spread recognizes the work being done by Keewaytinook Okimakanak in developing telehealth services in the Nishnawbe Aski Nation communities north of Sioux Lookout.

Check out the KO telehealth story on-line and the two KO visionaries who worked to develop these services (Geordi Kakepetum and Orpah McKenzie). The magazine and the KO Telehealth story also features other KO partners in the development of these innovative services (FedNor, Health Canada, NORTH Network, Bell Canada and others).

The Canadian Research Alliance For Community Innovation And Networking (CRACIN) workshop in Montreal is being attended by two Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff members. Click here for the meeting agenda.

Brian Walmark, KO's Special Projects Coordinator, is working with a number of post-secondary partners and organizations to develop the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Research Institute as directed by the Chiefs of Keewaytinook Okimakanak. Click here to view the briefing note describing this new KO initiative.

KO's K-Net Services is working with CRACIN as one of the seven case studies to research community networking in First Nation. Adam Fiser, a PhD graduate student at the University of Toronto is developing his thesis proposal to gather information about the work being completed to support First Nation schools in their efforts to get connected to broadband infrastructure and applications.

Chief Raymond Mason, Keewaywin First Nation and Dan Pellerin, K-Net's Network Manager, are attending Industry Canada's First Nations SchoolNet (FNS) program bi-annual gathering that is taking place in Halifax. These meetings provide an opportunity for the six Regional Management Organizations to meet with Industry Canada's Information Highway Applications Branch (IHAB) team to share stories and develop strategic plans to support First Nation schools across Canada.

Video conferencing connections are in place using KO's video bridge to connect all the members of the FNS team that includes the RMO's across Canada (click here to see the six different RMO hosts supporting all First Nation schools in Canada). Jesse Fiddler, K-Net's Multi-media Manager, was scheduled to attend this conference but weather prevented his attendance in person. He was still able to participate in the meeting and complete his prepared presentation using the video conference facilities. The meeting is being webcast and archived for others to learn about this work.

Meeting agenda follows:

4th FNS National Program Meeting
May 12th, 13th and 14th, 2004
Casino Nova Scotia Hotel, Halifax, Nova Scotia

Lunch speaker: Paul Swinwood (day to be determined)

Keewaytinook Okimakanak K-Net team members travelled to Rainy River First Nation last week to work with their staff in the development of their new community web portal. Click here to see the Rainy River First Nation web portal.

As well, the T1 connection installed as part of the First Nation SchoolNet video conferencing pilot project in their community library, was extended using a DSL connection to the Band Office. Rainy River First Nation is working with K-Net staff to identify strategies to extend their broadband connection to other organizations and community members. Pictures and more information about this work is available at http://firstnationschools.ca

National Chief Phil Fontaine from the Assembly of First Nations tried to get to the Keewaytinook Okimakanak Balmertown office today but the weather would not cooperate. Chief Fontaine and his team got as far as Winnipeg where the KO staff were able to work with the Keewatin Tribal Council's SchoolNet Regional Management Organization to have Chief Fontaine meet with the KO team via video conference. Along with the connections to the KO Balmertown office, the KO Sioux Lookout office, and the Manitoba RMO office, special guests from the Maori KWoR institute, Tom Winitana and Graeme Everton joined us from New Zealand to meet Chief Fontaine and share some of their work with KO.

A series of Briefing Notes on some of the ongoing work at Keewaytinook Okimakanak was presented to Chief Fontaine with the hope that he will work on behalf of Keewaytinook Okimakanak to address some of our issues on the following matters. Click on the topic below to see the PDF version of the briefing note delivered to Chief Fontaine during this video conference meeting:

1. Kuhkenah Broadband Network Briefing Note
2. KO First Nations SchoolNet RMO Briefing Note
3. K-Net SMART Communities Briefing Note
4. KIHS Briefing Note
5. KO Telehealth Briefing Note
6. KO Research Institute Briefing Note
7. KO Health Services Briefing Note
8. KO National Satellite Initiative Briefing Note

One outcome from the meeting was a commitment from Chief Fontaine to complete his visit to Balmertown sometime in the next month.

Jean-Francois Delorme (JF), with the Kativik Regional Government office in Kuujjuaq, arrived at K-Net's office in Sioux Lookout on April 28 and left on May  5. He spent the week working with Dan and Adi on the satellite portion of the Kuhkenah Network. JF and the K-Net team worked together to establish the necessary protocols and procedures for maintaining and supporting our respective partner communities and resources.

Sharing both technical and network development strategies is making it possible for these satellite-served, remote communities in two different regions of Canada (Northern Ontario and Northern Quebec) to share both the hub and network infrastructure as well as the technical expertise required to operate this satellite network. KRG recently was allocated 11mhz of bandwidth on Industry Canada's second public benefit transponder made available by Telesat as part of their agreement for specific orbital spectrum space. Click here to see the news story about this announcement.

The fourteen communities served by the Kativik Regional Government are each served by a C-Band satellite earthstation. They are receive their data connection through the K-Net earth station located in Sioux Lookout. Over the past two years, KRG has been building their network and applications using the K-Net portion of Industry Canada's C-band satellite public benefit resource (see http://smart.knet.ca/satellite for more information about this resource). With the addition of the KRG allocation along with our other partner (Keewatin Tribal Council) in Northern Manitoba, the combined satellite bandwidth resource will be able to be utilized to serve many of the different broadband applications being developed in the communities and these different regions (telehealth, education, justice, administration, etc).