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Keewaywin Staff had their christmas party last night. It was a pretty good turnout, considering that most of the staff were already on Holidays. The evening started out quiet. We had the Chief say a few words and a prayer was said to start off the evening. A couple of people talked about Christmas and what it means to them and there was some comparing about what Christmas is about from the old days and what it is now. The councillors also talked about their childhood days when they were waiting for their gifts. Back then they got rabbits or other food for presents. Pop was only a nickle back then, or there wasn't even pop then. It was a good time and jokes and riddles were also passed around. The present opening was great and a buffet style spread was on the table with lots of goodies. for pictures click on Keewaywin Band Office Xmas Party Photos

Keewaywin has put their radio station back on air. The equipment for the radio station is situated in the boardroom of the Keewaywin Band Office. Keewaywin can tune in at 107.9 FM.

Just want to post up some of the pictures that were taken during supper. Lucy Kakegamic reported the activities was very memoriable. All school staff attended the supper. As the evening wore on there was a gift exchange. The highlight of the evening was when George and Pauline Kakegamic opened their presents. See photos at http://photos.knet.ca/keewaywinschool.

The clinic held their Christmas party for the community's children. The party was mainly for the young infants and children under the age of six. There was lots of refreshments, games and prizes for everyone to enjoy. The party was arranged by the local clinic staff and was coordinated by Karen Kakepetum, a staff member, who is in charge of supporting the well being of Keewaywin's children and healthy living. The kids had a ball getting to visit other children their age and playing games and sharing. Everyone had a great time. Merry Christmas Everyone! See the pictures

Last night on December 12th, the Keewaywin community Church had their annual Christmas Pot Luck feast. There were a lot of food served. There was actually a couple of times where the community had to wait for the second seating. The Church members all contributed to cooking and baking for the feast. All feast goers got to take home a brown bag full of goodies. This is just the start of the many community feasts that will be going on. Sometimes the feasts go on for more than a week. Everyone in the community sets up their own feast which they had already decided which date to pick. For the next two weeks someone is having a feast every day. It is that time of the year where everyone becomes just sick of turkey. But I like turkey. The clinic will be having their party tomorrow night. It is for the infants in the community and presents will be handed out and games played. For picture of the Church feast click http://photos.knet.ca/churchfeast

The e-Center staff completed the week's overview of the workshop. The workshop facilitators asked questions such as: What worked well? Who was there? What did we learn? How was the workshop helpful? What can we do to change and improve on the next workshop? Ricardo and Helen were there with Les Meekis to do a summary of the week's events. The e-center staff was asked to monitor the diffferent uses of the technology that is in use today in Keewaywin. The spray diagrams were discussed and the overall week's events were summarized. The Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff located in their offices in Balmertown and Sioux Lookout joined us via video conferencing for the morning session. Before the workshop it seems the community were not clear about what the smart program was all about. Now, after the workshop, people know there is a smart program and what it is suppose to do in our community. The workshop helped explain what the smart program can do and how it is will assist as we enter into the new information technology world. The demonstrations, slide shows, presentations, group sharing and the community feast gave us a new meaning of togetherness and sharing. We were able to look at the direction we want for the future of our community using these communication technologies. The workshop helped us to better understand the technology that is out there and how we might use it to better ourselves.

The Staff of the Keewaywin Administration, other Band staff members, Niska Lake Economic development Corp., Social Services and the public works employees all took part in day four of the Keewaywin workshop. Les Meekis and Raymond Mason opened up with the opening remarks and introduction of everyone in the workshop. Councillor Silas Kakegamic opened the workshop with the a prayer. The day's agenda was introduced. Ricardo and Helen of Telecom Development group started off the workshop developing charts, spray diagrams and a slide presentation. David Neegan also did a slide presentation on forestry and land use. Helen showed a presentation of how other learning centers are doing in other countries. She showed us slides of Peru and other improvished countries showing how technology has changed their lives. The slides showed what they are doing with ICTs and about it. I was surprised at how similiar their community and our reserve are. For instance the phone. They have a place where they have only one phone and they have to share it and buy time to use the phones. That was almost like Keewaywin when we first started the community. There was only one phone for the whole community. North Spirit had only one phone too, a pay phone which was located outside a building. As you can see we have come a long way and technology has just reached us and is going at an extremely fast rate. Jesse Fiddler meanwhile was doing his presentation on scanning, adobe photoshop features and demonstrations with the grades 7 & 8 class. They discussed different ways to use these programs. There were a lot of Keewaywin staff from different areas of employment who participated in the workshop. Everyone was very impressed with the presentations and demonstrations at the workshop. After all the slide presentation were done, Silas Kakegamic said a prayer to close the workshop for the day.

The Keewaywin school closed for the day so the staff could attend the workshop and contribute to the planning for the use of ICTs for education and training in the community. Lorriane Kakegamic, the Education Director said the opening prayer. Education and training was the topic for the day, with the local Kuh-ke-nah staff and K-net on hand to help with the workshop. The same format that was used for the health department was again used today. Everyone present were asked about their expectations for the community. Questions such as what is good education, how to get there (programs), and how can we measure and document how much technology is being used, were discussed. Everyone offered their input and a lot of information was collected for a spray diagram displaying everyone's suggestions. This information was then used to organize and group common themes together. There were a lot of questions and answers throughout the workshop. The session gave everyone the opportunity to ask questions such as the modems, when will the cable system be hooked up and explanations of why the old computers are so slow in getting information off the web. While the workshop was in progress Jesse Fiddler went to the KiHS room to get his video equipment set up. The high school students were on hand to help with the set up of equipment and actually doing the taping. The students were interviewed on how technology has changed their lives and what they think the future holds for the technology that is being used today in their community. Jesse, Blue and I are making out templates for creating a new web site for the information collected which we will be posting at a later date. It will be a web page for all the communities displaying the findings from the community surveys and the workshops that the Kuh-ke-nah project has been doing and will be doing. See the photos at Photo Gallery

Keewaytinook Okimakanak's Kuh-ke-nah Smart program hosted a community feast for Keewaywin. Our councillor Freddie Kakegamic said the prayer for the feast. The whole community gathered together at the Keewaywin School Gym to participate and join us for the feast. We sat the elders of the community at the head of the table. There was a lot of food served, thanks to the volunteer services of the church, businesses and community, who pooled all their efforts to make the feast a success. I was on hand to take photographs. The feast was fun and there was much laughter throughout the feast. Everyone chipped in to help clean up the gym after the feast. There was a lot of food left over and a lot of people were happy to take home a huge doggie bag. The kids were having fun with the demonstration of the camera which was set up. They were having a ball looking at themselves on the television screen. The community of Keewaywin would like to thank the Northern Chiefs Kuh-Ke-Nah Smart Program for throwing this feast together. See the pictures at Photo Gallery

Keewaywin's health unit started the workshop this morning (Nov 20) at the Keewaywin school gym. The Kuh-ke-nah Smart Program staff started off the workshop with opening remarks from Les Meekis. Ricardo then made a presentation to the Keewaywin health team on what technology can do to help implement the goals and expectations for the community. Les was on hand to help with the demonstrations. A spray diagram was created on a flip chart paper detailing what the community members felt is good health with ideas on how to get there (programs). The health staff were very enthusiastic and gave a lot of information about what they wanted to see. The KO First Nation Health Directors, attending a planning meeting in Balmertown, came on line via video at four in the afternoon. They were presented with the spray diagram on health. Lawrence Mason and Dorothy Kakepetum presented this information throughout the video conferencing session. That evening Jesse gave a demonstration on the many uses of the computer for graphics. One demonstrated superimposing one of the community member's head and attaching it to the body of different wrestlers. It was a fun night for the kids. Jesse also demonstrated how you can record your own demo cds. Community members were delighted to be included in the workshops. Also on hand were the refreshments, provided by the e-center and the Kuh-ke-nah workshop. See the pictures at Health Workshop Photo Gallery