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From http://www.timminspress.com/webapp/sitepages/content.asp?contentid=220369&catname=Local+News&classif=

Governments not serving Aboriginal youth: Bartleman

Scott Paradis - October 06, 2006

Aboriginal youths in southern Ontario vent their frustrations through protest, while in the North they too often turn to suicide, said Ontario's representative to the Queen.

James Bartleman, Ontario's lieutenant-governor, spoke to a crowd of delegates attending the Boreal Conference 2006 on Wednesday at the Thomas Cheechoo Jr. Memorial Arena in Moose Factory.

He told the room of forestry officials from around the world the painful struggle facing Northern First Nation youths.

"First Nations in the south aren't doing as bad," Bartleman said. "But I saw that when I came to Northern Ontario, First Nations are the Third World."

Bartleman said the suicide rates are so high in fly-in communities that some in Ontario report a suicide nearly every week.

The problems began when Northern Aboriginal peoples, who only recently have had post-modern life pushed upon them, stepped away from traditional livelihood, he said.

Populations are too great in most of these communities for residents to live off the land, "but, you go to the store where milk costs $13 and fresh fruits and vegetables are out of the question," he said.

The state of education exacerbates the social problems caused by poverty, he said.

Schools in most fly-in First Nations are dilapidated, falling apart and full of mould, he said.

The way the federal and provincial governments are set up to handle Aboriginal affairs does little to help First Nation education, he said.

"The federal government is responsible for First Nation education, but they don't have the expertise to implement the programs," he said.

"The province has the expertise, but they don't have the responsibility," added Bartleman.

Amid the social troubles comes a program that could help curb anger, frustration and eventually suicide in remote communities, said Bartleman.

The lieutenant-governor's literacy camps ran this past summer in every Ontario fly-in First Nation.

Bartleman implemented the program after running a successful pilot project with six communities.

Now that financial commitments will likely keep the literacy camps running in the future, Bartleman said another literacy program is ready to get off the ground.

The $1-million-plus program called Club Amick for Young Readers will have selected youths receiving a new, hard-cover book of their own every second month.

Amid these hurdles, Smith said there has been success.

The program will also have a newsletter, magazine or newspaper sent to them written by some of the club's participating youths, for youths.

"The kids will get to see what they, and other kids, are writing," Bartleman said.

"It could be a story about themselves, a fictional story, a poem."

Bartleman previously announced the Literacy Camps and Club Amick programs months earlier during a visit to Timmins.

However, he gave an update on the program's progress during his visit to Moose Factory.

Club Amick will launch in as little as two weeks, noted Bartleman.

"Poverty, does not allow some children to own their own books," said Bartleman.

"Imagine these children getting a book, with their name on it, in the mail," he added.

Children living in the Nishnawbe-Aski Nation territory are about three to six years behind the national average in literacy, said the lieutentant-governor.

Bartleman said he believes this statistic is connected to low self-esteem on isolated First Nations, and the suicide rates.

With the literacy programs, Bartleman said he hopes to begin the ripple effect that will curb and reverse these statistics.