Media.Knet.Ca

Announcing another important upcoming event ...

Digital Storytelling grassroots online videoconference

A Public Multi-Site Videoconference Meeting

Tuesday, July 24 10am Pacific, noon Central, 1pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic

About the Event:

This meeting is open to anyone interested in making videos from a grassroots community perspective and sharing them online. We will discuss how we can promote and support digital storytelling and online video in First Nation communities and what will be necessary to support the production of more online videos.

For more information or to join:

Contact Lyle Johnson at 1-877-737-KNET (5638) ext 1387.

For more information on this topic please please visit http://videocom.knet.ca

Click here to view the poster for this event.  Feel free to pass this along to anybody that you may find to be interested in this topic.

FAAY announcement ...

FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF ABORIGINAL YOUTH (FAAY) SCHOLARSHIP AND BURSARY PROGRAM

The Foundation for the Advancement of Aboriginal Youth (FAAY) Scholarships and Bursaries are now available for 2007/2008. Information and application forms can be found online at

http://www.ccab.com/faay/ or call 1-866-566-FAAY

FAAY is an initiative of the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business. Since 1994, CCAB has helped distribute nearly $2 million to 1260 students in every province and territory. Last year, they distributed more than $300,000 to 131 deserving Aboriginal scholars.

High School Student?

Any Aboriginal student heading into grade 9 or higher at a Canadian high school can apply for a bursary.

University or College Student?

Aboriginal students studying full-time at an accredited post-secondary institution in Canada can apply for a scholarship.

Deadline for application is October 12, 2007.

Evan Jones
Urban Aboriginal Strategy
BC Office of the Federal Interlocutor
Office: 604-666-7931

The foundation of every nation is the education of its youth

Marlene Erickson,Coordinator First Nations Education Support Services
(FNESS)
Phone: 250-562-2131 (Ext 460) or 1-800-371-8111

SLARC press release ...

SLARC Youth Centre announces Sports Nights (2007-2008)

Sioux Lookout (July 17, 2007) – The Sioux Lookout Anti-Racism Committee announced today that it is hosting sports nights for youth ages 11 to 18, commencing next Tuesday, July 24, 2007.

Supported by a Safer and Vital Communities Grant, SLARC Sports Night will take place Tuesdays at the Sioux Lookout Recreation Centre in the gym from 7-9pm. Weather permitting, some evenings will be hosted outdoors at various locations for different activities. Activities are free to the youth of the community and include floor hockey, badminton, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball and frisbee-golf. Once a month the youth will organize a tournament with the sponsorship of local businesses and community organizations and with the involvement of the local police. 

“This is a great opportunity to enhance the programs at the Youth Centre,” said Youth Empowerment Coordinator, Daniel Fraser. “This grant enables us to provide a safe environment for youth to interact positively with each other and with adults.”

In the first tournament, coming up August 14th, youth will challenge the SLARC board. “The board better start practicing now, the youth are sure to be a challenge” said Amy McDonald, a SLARC summer student who is helping to organize the Sports Nights.

The Safer and Vital Communities Grant is offered through the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/). It encourages communities, business and government to work together, forge new alliances and build safer, healthier communities in which to live. This partnership approach provides an opportunity to build an increased sense of belonging and community spirit across Ontario.

The Sioux Lookout Anti-Racism Committee was established in 1988 as a means of promoting cooperation and understanding within Sioux Lookout.  SLARC is dedicated to helping all residents and visitors to our community learn to work and live together while respecting and celebrating our differences. The goal is to develop a just community where the future will be better for us all.

For further information, please contact:

Daniel Fraser, Youth Empowerment Coordinator (807) 737 0161
Amy McDonald – SLARC Summer Student (807) 737 1501

Press release from Ontario government ...

Nutrition Information Phone Line Connects Ontarians To Registered Dietitians

TORONTO, July 18 /CNW/ - The McGuinty government is continuing to improve the health of all Ontarians by launching the free EatRight Ontario telephone information service that provides healthy eating and nutrition advice.

"Credible information on nutrition and healthy eating is key to good health. That's why we've created the EatRight Ontario telephone service - to provide Ontarians with a new free resource that connects them directly with qualified individuals who can discuss healthy food choices and explain diet-related health risk factors," said Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson.

The toll-free EatRight Ontario telephone service enables individuals to ask Registered Dietitians nutrition questions by calling 1-877-510-510-2 or visiting www.ontario.ca/eatright.

The EatRight Ontario team of Registered Dietitians is available by phone Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. The service is available in over 120 languages including Mandarin, Korean; Polish; German; Spanish, Ukrainian; Punjabi; Hungarian; Portuguese; Italian; Arabic.

The call centre was developed in partnership with the Dietitians of Canada, to help Ontario families become better informed about healthy food choices, especially in rural areas where Registered Dietitians are not easily accessible.

"Dietitians of Canada is pleased to have a key role in making this service a reality," said Helen Haresign, VP Development for Dietitians of Canada. "We know that the public is interested in nutrition and trusts the nutrition advice from Registered Dietitians. EatRight Ontario gives Ontarians better access to an authoritative information source that can help guide their daily food choices."

The www.ontario.ca/eatright website offers articles on nutrition, including healthy weights, family and seniors' nutrition and disease prevention, tips on packing healthy lunches and food labeling, and links to valuable resources within Ontario's health network.

Desta Rae reports ... (see the Toronto Star story below)

Three members of the KO tribal council took part in Project Beyshick this week. 

Founded by Aditya Jha, the POA Foundation in partnership with NADF organized the job shadowing / mentorship program for young entrepreneurs and prospective executives. 

Devon Archie Meekis (Deer Lake) was placed at the TD Bank headquarters, Desta Buswa (North Spirit Lake) at the Sick Kids Foundation, and Devon Blaine Meekis (Deer Lake) spent his time at Up Front Entertainment. 

Seventeen NAN youth were chosen to take part of this program. 

To apply for next years program, please visit the POA Foundation's website at www.poafoundation.org

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From Toronto Star ...

Project to develop business acumen in Ontario aboriginal communities - Founder sees program as way to help natives break away from government handouts

Jered Stuffco - CANADIAN PRESS - Jul 16, 2007

While most computer techs wage daily battles with destructive viruses, self-described "geek" Devon Meekis has to fight an affliction which can be even more debilitating than the most insidious spyware program.

Meekis, an aboriginal who started his own IT company about a decade ago, says he encounters jealousy and ridicule from within his own community.

"We have this theory we call the `crab syndrome,' where if somebody is pulling themselves out of the pail, all of the other crabs will try and bring them back down again," says Meekis, whose business is based in Thunder Bay.

Add to that prejudice and misconceptions from the white community, and it's no wonder aboriginals have a hard time breaking into the business world, says Meekis.

That's why he's joining 24 other young aboriginals in Project Beyshick, a mentorship initiative aiming to foster and sharpen the business acumen of First Nations communities through an intensive, week-long program of seminars, presentations and workshops.

"I'm seeing how hard it is for people like us to make it – for people who grew up on the reserve especially," says Meekis, who named his company FLI – which means "for little Indians.

"I figured that the best way to show somebody that they can make it is to make it yourself."

Project Beyshick, which started Saturday with orientation sessions in Peterborough, also gives participants from northern Ontario's Nishnawbe Aski Nation, serious face-time with some of Canada's top business leaders.

Meekis is set to spend three days this week job shadowing with Karen Dunk-Green, who works for TD Bank Financial Group.

"This year, I want to learn how to effectively manage people – how to effectively be hands-off while still keeping your ideas alive," said Meekis, 32.

Project Beyshick, which is now in it's third annual edition, is the brainchild of Aditya Jha, a Nepal-born businessman and philanthropist who moved to Canada from India and started a software company called Isopia Inc. in 1999.

Jha, who sold Isopia Inc. for more than $100 million in 2001, says he was spurred to start the project after witnessing the social problems and Third-World conditions rife within aboriginal communities.

Jha says that getting aboriginals more heavily involved in the business community could be an effective alternative to the system of government handouts which have kept aboriginals locked in a cycle of poverty.

Greg Baas, a participant who owns and runs a fishing and hunting lodge in the remote town of Sioux Lookout, echoes those sentiments.

He adds most aboriginals in his community don't have the support necessary to start businesses. "There are programs right now to help aboriginal businesses, but it's just having the courage to try and do it. It's not easy to run a business and not everyone wants to do it."

Baas, 32, is set to spend three days shadowing Ken Folwer, the investment wizard who heads one of the country's top investment and management advisory firms.

TVO CEO Lisa De Wilde, also acting as a program mentor this year, says the program is a unique tool.

"It does something that's concrete and it delivers something to young people that I think is unique across Canada."

Last year, Wilde mentored a 16-year-old girl from Timmins, who was exposed to an entirely new world. "She had a real eye-opening experience. She was so sweet. She said, `"I've never been exposed to a woman that runs an organization.'"

Please note the new dates (Aug 20-24, 2007) for this gathering in Garden River First Nation. Visit http://www.threefiresconfederacy.org/ for all the information about this gathering of nations.

From the Prince George Citizen ...

Ont. tribal council launches human rights complaints over aboriginal policing  
by Scott Paradis, Timmins Daily Press (National News) , 16 July 2007

TIMMINS, Ont. (CP) - A northern Ontario tribal council has slapped the federal and provincial governments with two human rights complaints for what it says is inadequate funding for Aboriginal policing.

Mushkegowuk Council calls the problem part of the “systemic racism” that exists within the government.

Mushkegowuk Council launched human rights complaints Monday on behalf of the First Nation communities it represents, five of which are on the isolated western James Bay Coast.

The complaints come after years of negotiations with the upper levels of government, which have failed to provide First Nations with appropriate funding for policing, Mushkegowuk Grand Chief Stan Louttit said.

“We have never been able to acquire the proper resources like any other town in (Canada),” Louttit said. “We've sought legal opinion and what we've been told is that it's a form of racism.”

Many of the First Nation towns represented by Mushkegowuk do not have a police force that can actively patrol the communities 24-hour-a-day, seven-days-a-week.

Instead officers with the Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service in some of these areas revert to on-call status for parts of the night.

In Attawapiskat, officers are typically on-call between 2 a.m. and 6 a.m.

This is unacceptable and fails to protect the residents' property and personal safety, Louttit said.

“There's a big difference between on call and (active) patrol,” he said. “Come 3 a.m. (criminals) know the police aren't around, they know the police aren't on patrol.”

Municipalities across Canada don't have this problem, he said.

Even on the James Bay Coast, the municipality of Moosonee enjoys between 10 and 11 police officers, a state-of-the-art police station and new police vehicles.

That's in sharp contrast to the state of policing in Attawapiskat, or much of the other James Bay Coast First Nations.

In those communities only a handful of officers are available and they typically work out of a dilapidated, make-shift police detachment, Louttit said.

Ontario and Canada began funding First Nation policing in Mushkegowuk territory in 1994 when Nishnawbe-Aski Police Service entered an agreement with the two levels of government.

The spending framework in the agreement calls for the province to pay 48 per cent while the federal government takes care of 52 per cent of police funding.

An important resolution, cooperatively developed by health representatives at AFN, COO, NAN and KO was successfully moved forward and accepted by the Chiefs attending the Assembly of First Nations gathering in Halifax this past week. For KO Telemedicine, the resolution is another level of support that demonstrates these organizations' and the First Nation support for community-based telehealth services. With this support and direction to Health Canada's First Nations and Inuit Health Branch (FNIHB), it is hoped that KOTM will receive its much needed sustainability funding from Health Canada when the current 2 year project is completed in March, 2008.

AFN Resolution, as it was presented to the chiefs for their consideration ...

SUBJECT: Telehealth/Telemedicine Development and Sustainability

WHEREAS:

A. Telehealth/Telemedicine facilitates access to priority services such as mental health, diabetes, chronic disease management and pandemic planning and improves community-based access to health services and capacity-building and training opportunities for health staff servicing First Nations; and

B. First Nations based and directed Telehealth/Telemedicine programs have demonstrated success as a proven model of facilitating health service delivery supported by First Nations; and

C. There is no current First Nations controlled process to address Telemedicine/Telehealth nationally;

D. First Nations Telemedicine/Telehealth Programming requires adequate funding to support local and regional ehealth initiatives.

THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that:

1. The Chiefs-in-Assembly, support the development of a First Nations controlled and directed National Telemedicine/Telehealth Program that clearly identifies First Nations Telemedicine/Telehealth needs and prorities as determined through legitimate First Nations controlled process; and
2. The Chiefs-in-Assembly, direct Health Canada – FNIH to ensure appropriate long-term sustainability resources be identified within the First Nation Telehealth / Telemedicine Program to maintain the development, operation, maintenance and capacity-development requirements of such Regional First Nation Strategies and Processes; and
3. The establishment of the First Nations National Telehealth/Telemedicine Program shall be without prejudice to existing and/or on-going initiatives with repect to First Nation Telehealth/Telemedicine programs, (for example, KO Telemedicine Program) and will provide these programs with necessary resources for sustainability, capacity-building, enhancement and expansion.

MOVED BY: Chief Randy Phillips, Oneida Nation of the Thames, ON

SECONDED BY: Deputy Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, ON

DECISION: The telehealth resolution was passed without amendment and without any opposition (as reported by Brian Walmark, KO rep and proxy at the meeting)

From The London Times ...

19 mins, -1.8C: the first swim at the North Pole
Alan Hamilton - July 16, 2007

Had it been just one degree further down the thermometer, not even the polar bears could have managed what Lewis Pugh achieved in the early hours of yesterday.

Mr Pugh, a maritime lawyer and environmental campaigner from London, swam a kilometre (.62 miles) at the Geographic North Pole to highlight the effects of global warming. At -1.8C (28.76F), it is believed to be the coldest water a human has ever swum in.

Clad only in his Speedo trunks, cap and goggles as required by the rules of the Channel Swimming Association – which also forbid any buoyancy aids, swimming caps that offer any thermal protection or trunks cut above crotch level – Mr Pugh spent just under 19 agonising minutes in the melted sea ice navigating a path in a crack between broken floes.

The feat would not have been possible ten years ago, when the water was entirely frozen over, even in summer.

Mr Pugh, 37, confessed afterwards that the pain was so excruciating he almost gave up several times. At dead of night, but seeing his way in the permanent Arctic summer daylight, he entered the water at 2 am and reemerged at 2.18 and 50 seconds, perished but ecstatic.

“The water was absolutely black – it was like plunging into a dark black hole,” he said as his body temperature slowly returned to normal. “It was frightening. The pain was immediate and felt like my body was on fire. I was in excruciating pain from beginning to end and I nearly quit on a few occasions. It was without doubt the hardest swim of my life.”

He had been inspired, he said, by his friend and fellow environmentalist Jorgen Amundsen, the great-great-nephew of the first man to reach the South Pole.

Mr Pugh, who trained in a glacial lake in Norway, said: “I will never give up in front of a Norwegian, let alone a relative of Roald Amundsen.”

Because of its salinity, seawater freezes at a slightly lower temperature than fresh water. But the surface water at the North Pole is of relatively low salinity, and at -1.8C was on the verge of turning to ice that not even the bears could have swum in.

Most people who attempted such a feat would drown within minutes as the intense cold disabled their muscles. Mr Pugh believes that he can raise his normal body temperature by one degree by concentrating on raising his heart rate.

Tim Noakes, of Cape Town University, an expert on the effects of cold water on the human body, monitored the swim and found that on leaving the water Mr Pugh’s body temperature had dropped to 36.5C. Twenty minutes later it had fallen even further to a dangerously low 35C, but within an hour it had recovered to a normal 37C.

“To swim at the North Pole is an incredible achievement, and is the culmination of years of unique endeavour by an astonishing individual,” Professor Noakes said. “At the end of the swim, Lewis was showing obvious signs of distress but he never faltered and his performance was the best yet.”

Mr Pugh holds the record for the world’s most southerly swim, on the edge of the Antarctic ice sheet, and last year became the first person to swim the length of the Thames. He claims to be the only person to have completed a long-distance swim in each of the world’s five oceans.

He has already attracted the nickname “Polar Bear” for his cold-water swimming. He trained for his latest feat by eating five meals a day for three months and putting on 24 lb. Mr Pugh reached the Geographic North Pole by hitching a lift on an icebreaking ship sailing out of Murmansk in northern Russia.

The North Pole challenge was organised by the Worldwide Fund for Nature to raise awareness of environmental issues.

Scientists predict that by 2040 the Arctic could be virtually free of ice in summer. Mr Pugh said yesterday that his achievement was a bittersweet victory. “It’s a triumph and a tragedy – a triumph that I could swim in such ferocious conditions, but a tragedy that it is now possible to swim at the North Pole.”

National Indian Treaties 1-11 Gathering

July 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 2007
July 22 - Elders Ceremonies
July 23 - Elders Forum

Open Letter to Chiefs

We have been given another opportunity to gather up about our Treaties One to Eleven.

At each gathering we are able to reach a consensus on how we can and must take action to protect our Treaties for future generations. Each gathering gives us the understanding and commitment we need to take the action needed to have Canada honour the Treaty Obligations of the Crown.

At this gathering we will need to understand how the failure to honour our Treaties on the part of Canada means that our hand has been strengthened, not weakened. Canada’s failure to honour The Numbered Treaties only weakens their claim to our lands and resources as well as their claim for full and exclusive sovereignty on our Traditional Territories.

It is my hope that at this gathering we will find consensus on how we can collectively attack by legal and international action the territorial legitimacy of the State of Canada.

Lets us put our minds and hearts together to rekindle the True Spirit of Treaties One to Eleven.

For Treaty Justice,

Chief Ovide Mercredi
Misipawistik Cree Nation
National Spokesperson, Treaties One to Eleven

Please Click Here for further details, poster and docs.