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Mamow Sha-way-gi-kay-win providing hope in remote First Nations through partnerships
From The Star's
Partnership gives hope to northern reserves - Atkinson-funded project links Toronto charities to Northern Ontario’s remote First Nations
Brendan Kennedy Staff Reporter
First Nations leaders in Ontario’s remote north are wary of offers of help for their children — especially when they come from the big cities in the south.
A colonial history paved in good intentions but marked by residential schools and Children’s Aid Society “scoops” would make most people skeptical of supposed charity.
But a new and unique partnership, designed to empower the reserves to help themselves, is creating hope amid despair.
“With this new organization, I feel like it’s our own,” said Harvey Kakegamic, a band councillor for Sandy Lake First Nation — about 600 kilometres north of Thunder Bay — and a board member with Mamow Sha-way-gi-kay-win, the North South Partnership for Children.
The Partnership — whose Oji-Cree name means “Altogether caring for one another and giving without expectation” — links 30 fly-in First Nations reserves in northwestern Ontario with more than 100 philanthropic, academic and volunteer organizations in Southern Ontario.
The aim is to address the extreme poverty faced by children on the reserves by consolidating resources in the south and matching them to the needs identified by the north.
“We’re simply a broker,” says Judy Finlay, Ontario’s former child advocate, who helped found the Partnership three years ago and remains a special adviser while they search for an executive director.
As the province’s child advocate, Finlay witnessed the grinding poverty and despair faced by children in Ontario’s north, where conditions on reserves include a lack of clean drinking water and adequate housing, little to no electricity, widespread unemployment, lack of basic educational, health and recreational services, and the highest rates of teen suicide anywhere in the country.
Finlay said children in the remote north were by far the province’s most vulnerable, but their living conditions are unknown to most Ontarians, who send millions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas, while largely neglecting the Third World that exists at home.
The Partnership is firmly non-governmental, as requested by the First Nations’ leaders, who have grown distrustful and frustrated with the rigid government intervention in their communities and the jurisdictional wrangling that goes on between provincial and federal powers.
The Partnership is founded on the basic principal that the communities themselves know best how to solve their problems, so its governance is led by First Nations’ chiefs and elders. “The North makes all of the decisions about what their priorities are,” Finlay said.
Southern partners can be voting members, but they must sign on for a minimum of 10 years to ensure they make a meaningful and lasting contribution.
“They’re so tired of people coming up once and leaving,” Finlay said. “They need to know you as a person.”
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which releases its 2009 annual report on Monday, was one of the Partnership’s earliest supporters, and last year awarded it the foundation’s largest single grant ($160,000).
Foundation president Peter Armstrong said the board was attracted to the North South Partnership because of its collaborative approach to community development and the opportunity to learn from the First Nations.
“This is no longer the imposition of the bureaucracy, it’s not an imposition of religion, it’s not an imposition of political ideology,” he said. “The southern partners are all committed to helping in ways that the northern partners declare they need.”
But the Partnership isn’t just interested in money. They also want to raise awareness in southern Ontario about the living conditions in their own province.
“The chiefs say very clearly they are living in Third World conditions and southern Ontario — and most of Ontario — is not aware of that,” Finlay said.
To that end, kids from the north are connecting with those in southern Ontario through Facebook and email, and skills-building workshops are being organized — from carpentry to local agriculture (to reduce dependence on expensive shipped groceries) — to share knowledge and experience between the north and south.
The Partnership has been growing steadily and gaining momentum since forming in 2007. It recently received charitable status and last month was awarded $580,000 over three years from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (the foundation’s largest single grant in 2010) to hire more staff and establish its operations for the long term.
Now that they’re planting their feet firmly on the ground, the Partnership’s first priority will be to tackle the housing crisis on the reserves, where overcrowding and mould are common. They’ve recently hired someone to head up the project full time.
“We want to see this as a way of contributing to the First Nations’ self-development,” says Maurice Brubacher, another co-founder, “and not something that’s flown in according to somebody else’s agenda.”
For more information on Mamow Sha-way-gi-kay-win, the North South Partnership for Children, visit www.northsouthpartnership.com.
++++++++++
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which will release its 2009 annual report on July 26, is a private foundation established in 1942 by Joseph E. Atkinson, founding publisher of the Toronto Star, to “promote social and economic justice in the tradition” of its founder.
The Foundation gives about $2 million annually in grants to charitable organizations, and awards annual fellowships in for prominent Canadians to pursue research and writing in public policy and economic justice. Past recipients include former premier Roy Romanow, housing activist Cathy Crowe and progressive economist Armine Yalnizyan.
The Foundation’s priority areas are poverty reduction, early learning and development and the Canadian Index of Well-being. Emerging priority areas are aboriginal child welfare and inclusion.
For more information visit www.atkinsonfoundation.ca.
First Nations leaders in Ontario’s remote north are wary of offers of help for their children — especially when they come from the big cities in the south.
A colonial history paved in good intentions but marked by residential schools and Children’s Aid Society “scoops” would make most people skeptical of supposed charity.
But a new and unique partnership, designed to empower the reserves to help themselves, is creating hope amid despair.
“With this new organization, I feel like it’s our own,” said Harvey Kakegamic, a band councillor for Sandy Lake First Nation — about 600 kilometres north of Thunder Bay — and a board member with Mamow Sha-way-gi-kay-win, the North South Partnership for Children.
The Partnership — whose Oji-Cree name means “Altogether caring for one another and giving without expectation” — links 30 fly-in First Nations reserves in northwestern Ontario with more than 100 philanthropic, academic and volunteer organizations in Southern Ontario.
The aim is to address the extreme poverty faced by children on the reserves by consolidating resources in the south and matching them to the needs identified by the north.
“We’re simply a broker,” says Judy Finlay, Ontario’s former child advocate, who helped found the Partnership three years ago and remains a special adviser while they search for an executive director.
As the province’s child advocate, Finlay witnessed the grinding poverty and despair faced by children in Ontario’s north, where conditions on reserves include a lack of clean drinking water and adequate housing, little to no electricity, widespread unemployment, lack of basic educational, health and recreational services, and the highest rates of teen suicide anywhere in the country.
Finlay said children in the remote north were by far the province’s most vulnerable, but their living conditions are unknown to most Ontarians, who send millions of dollars in humanitarian aid overseas, while largely neglecting the Third World that exists at home.
The Partnership is firmly non-governmental, as requested by the First Nations’ leaders, who have grown distrustful and frustrated with the rigid government intervention in their communities and the jurisdictional wrangling that goes on between provincial and federal powers.
The Partnership is founded on the basic principal that the communities themselves know best how to solve their problems, so its governance is led by First Nations’ chiefs and elders. “The North makes all of the decisions about what their priorities are,” Finlay said.
Southern partners can be voting members, but they must sign on for a minimum of 10 years to ensure they make a meaningful and lasting contribution.
“They’re so tired of people coming up once and leaving,” Finlay said. “They need to know you as a person.”
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which releases its 2009 annual report on Monday, was one of the Partnership’s earliest supporters, and last year awarded it the foundation’s largest single grant ($160,000).
Foundation president Peter Armstrong said the board was attracted to the North South Partnership because of its collaborative approach to community development and the opportunity to learn from the First Nations.
“This is no longer the imposition of the bureaucracy, it’s not an imposition of religion, it’s not an imposition of political ideology,” he said. “The southern partners are all committed to helping in ways that the northern partners declare they need.”
But the Partnership isn’t just interested in money. They also want to raise awareness in southern Ontario about the living conditions in their own province.
“The chiefs say very clearly they are living in Third World conditions and southern Ontario — and most of Ontario — is not aware of that,” Finlay said.
To that end, kids from the north are connecting with those in southern Ontario through Facebook and email, and skills-building workshops are being organized — from carpentry to local agriculture (to reduce dependence on expensive shipped groceries) — to share knowledge and experience between the north and south.
The Partnership has been growing steadily and gaining momentum since forming in 2007. It recently received charitable status and last month was awarded $580,000 over three years from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (the foundation’s largest single grant in 2010) to hire more staff and establish its operations for the long term.
Now that they’re planting their feet firmly on the ground, the Partnership’s first priority will be to tackle the housing crisis on the reserves, where overcrowding and mould are common. They’ve recently hired someone to head up the project full time.
“We want to see this as a way of contributing to the First Nations’ self-development,” says Maurice Brubacher, another co-founder, “and not something that’s flown in according to somebody else’s agenda.”
For more information on Mamow Sha-way-gi-kay-win, the North South Partnership for Children, visit www.northsouthpartnership.com.
++++++++++
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation
The Atkinson Charitable Foundation, which will release its 2009 annual report on July 26, is a private foundation established in 1942 by Joseph E. Atkinson, founding publisher of the Toronto Star, to “promote social and economic justice in the tradition” of its founder.
The Foundation gives about $2 million annually in grants to charitable organizations, and awards annual fellowships in for prominent Canadians to pursue research and writing in public policy and economic justice. Past recipients include former premier Roy Romanow, housing activist Cathy Crowe and progressive economist Armine Yalnizyan.
The Foundation’s priority areas are poverty reduction, early learning and development and the Canadian Index of Well-being. Emerging priority areas are aboriginal child welfare and inclusion.
For more information visit www.atkinsonfoundation.ca.