{"id":19944,"date":"2019-06-21T10:46:18","date_gmt":"2019-06-21T14:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/?p=19944"},"modified":"2026-04-01T15:40:38","modified_gmt":"2026-04-01T15:40:38","slug":"eden-valley","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/eden-valley\/","title":{"rendered":"Eden Valley"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Owen Charters<\/em><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve just returned from visiting the Eden Valley Reserve<\/a>, which has a population of 700, and is part of the Bearspaw First Nation, again part of the Stoney Nakoda nation.\u00a0I attended the graduation of two youth from Chief Jacob Bearspaw Memorial School who also participate in programming at Boys & Girls Clubs of the Foothills, south of Calgary.<\/p>\n

Today is National Indigenous Peoples Day<\/a>, a day we set aside to observe and celebrate the cultural diversity of the First Nations, Inuit, and M\u00e9tis peoples.<\/p>\n

It is also a day to reflect on the 2015 report from the Truth and Reconciliation Commission<\/a>.\u00a0Last week, I joined Sarah Midanik, a member of our national board and CEO of the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund<\/a>, to meet with Jocelyn Formsma, Executive Director of the National Association of Friendship Centres (NAFC).\u00a0Sarah and I discussed our emerging work on Reconciliation, and I recalled that I spoke at the NAFC Annual General Meeting two summers ago.\u00a0In that address<\/a>, I spoke about the TRC report\u2019s calls to action that are directed to us at Boys & Girls Clubs specifically:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe sixty-sixth call to action is about youth programming and community-based youth organizations. The eighty-ninth call asks for policies that promote physical activity as a fundamental element of health and well-being.\u00a0At Boys and Girls Clubs, we will raise our voices to support these calls to action, because in our Clubs we see\u2014every day\u2014the good that these programs can do for all children and youth.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why we need to act.\u00a0What I saw at Eden Valley was incredible\u2014situated in the stunning foothills and ranch-lands of the Rockies, we celebrated the graduation of two youths from high school.\u00a0It was a night of community celebration, of prayer, of drumming, with the Chief and council in attendance, of the local RCMP officer in red serge, of a school gym dressed up with LED lights and streamers, of food and dancing.\u00a0These two young people succeeded in overcoming the challenges of education, and as the Chief noted, the rest of their lives now lie ahead of them to explore.<\/p>\n

They are two in a school of 140. They are half of a grade twelve class\u2014the others did not graduate. And the daily attendance at the school is about 40\u2014children often stay home for a variety of reasons.\u00a0I watched a teacher warmly welcome a student to the graduation, and gently chide her for not attending school for the last few months.<\/p>\n

The Foothills Club is working to clean space at the local ice rink to host Club activities, as there is an urgent need for after school and summer programming.\u00a0It is a long and difficult journey of building trust in the community, of persistence and careful diplomacy.\u00a0The kids are struggling, with day-to-day issues and with larger tragedies and traumas.\u00a0But it is also a community of love, of tradition, of families with smiles that greet you when you arrive.<\/p>\n

Leaving Eden Valley was when the reality struck\u2014there is a great divide between life on Reserve and off.\u00a0It is so different and the culture is so unique that it can be very difficult for many youth to leave and pursue further education.\u00a0They often feel out of place in community colleges, universities.\u00a0Their families long for them to return.\u00a0Quite honestly, for these two graduates, there may not be many opportunities beyond high school.\u00a0Jodie Sieben, the Club\u2019s Director of Operations, spends countless hours in the community\u2014every day\u2014building programs, creating relationships.\u00a0She is an eternal optimist, and yet she also struggles to connect these youth to opportunities beyond completing their public schooling.\u00a0There is a long history of intergenerational trauma that has lasting powerful effects.<\/p>\n

I struggled with my emotions after leaving Jodie and Shirley Puttock, the Clubs\u2019 Executive Director. Back at the hotel, I called my wife and we talked about everything I had seen and experienced.\u00a0It is difficult to know what to do.\u00a0To know that Boys & Girls Clubs are doing something, are making a difference across the country, but also that our role can seem insignificant in the face of what I saw in Eden Valley, which is happening in many communities, in many cities, in many homes.\u00a0It is a struggle to reconcile our role as settlers and colonizers with our role as helpers, as allies.<\/p>\n

And there is the problem of indifference.\u00a0There are those who say that there are no Indigenous youth in their community, so Reconciliation is for others.\u00a0I would argue it is the opposite\u2014it is exactly because there may not be Indigenous children and youth in a Club that we must work harder at Reconciliation, to bridge what has been a divide of understanding, of learning.<\/p>\n

I grew up in Newfoundland & Labrador, where as schoolchildren we were taught that there were no Indigenous people native to the island because colonialists, settlers, and governments had wiped out all Beothuk in a campaign of genocide.\u00a0Today, however, there are many Indigenous people living and recognized in Newfoundland and Labrador: there have always been Inuit and Metis, but also a growing population of Mi\u2019kmaq.\u00a0We are surrounded by the culture, the territorial lands, the knowledge, the spirits of Indigenous peoples across this country, wherever we are.\u00a0We must guide current and future generations to acknowledge and embrace Indigenous roots and the vibrancy of our common heritage.\u00a0It is no longer okay to say that Reconciliation does \u2018not apply to me\u2019 because you don\u2019t know or interact with anyone evidently Indigenous.\u00a0It is the shared responsibility of all inhabitants of this country to acknowledge the past, confront the present, and build a better future.<\/p>\n

Our Clubs are already engaged deeply in Indigenous programs, in Indigenous culture, and in Reconciliation.\u00a0A national program committee is working to create a comprehensive approach to Reconciliation and Indigenous programming across Clubs.\u00a0We are working to develop a broad, grassroots approach to working with youth programs and Club initiatives on Reserves across the country.\u00a0We are already working with urban Indigenous youth, embracing programming that is integrated with Indigenous communities.\u00a0I toured the renovations at the Calgary Club\u2019s Renfrew site earlier this week, where Elders are inspecting and blessing the site before city inspectors can come in and do their work.\u00a0Where a circle room represents deep Indigenous cultural roots being incorporated into the very architecture and expression of the Club.<\/p>\n

This is not easy work.\u00a0It is hard to bridge cultural divides.\u00a0It is hard to understand the complexities, and to spend time acknowledging them.\u00a0But it is time to celebrate our heritage, to respond to the TRC\u2019s calls to action, individually and organizationally.\u00a0The slogan for the Gord Downie Chanie Wenjack fund is \u201cDo Something.\u201d\u00a0That is the call to action you need if you don\u2019t know where to start.\u00a0Today, do one thing.\u00a0Tomorrow, one more.\u00a0Each small step is a step on the path to Reconciliation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Owen Charters I\u2019ve just returned from visiting the Eden Valley Reserve, which has a population of 700, and is part of the Bearspaw First Nation, again part of the Stoney Nakoda nation.\u00a0I attended the graduation of two youth from Chief Jacob Bearspaw Memorial School who also participate in programming at Boys & Girls Clubs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[738,65,739,740,741,603,318,742],"class_list":["post-19944","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-leadership-blog","tag-calgary","tag-ceo","tag-chanie-wenjack","tag-foothills","tag-gord-downie","tag-indigenous","tag-national-association-of-friendship-centres","tag-national-indigenous-peoples-day"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19944"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19944\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bgccan.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}