Activities for Aboriginal youth focus of community consultation

The next step for a pair of Edmonton women is to determine how best to meet the interests that have been voiced in order to offer affordable Aboriginal youth activity programming.

Susan Sinclair, a Cree language teacher, and Angela Coppola, a University of Alberta doctoral student, used an $11,000 grant from the U of A’s health science council to host four meetings in Edmonton during September and October.

About 20-30 people attended each of the consultation meetings. First-time participants were provided small honorariums for taking part.

“I was really pleased with the turnout and with the people who came out and are willing to participate,” Coppola said.

Now Coppola, Sinclair and others, including Elders, will be meeting to see how they can best utilize the information gathered at the consultation meetings.

Common themes arose from the meetings. Many said that sporting activities were not affordable for Aboriginal youth and their families. Others commented on the need to raise funds for young Aboriginal athletes who participate in out-of-city events or even competitions outside of the province. Yet others said there was a need to better promote sporting activities that are available to Aboriginal youth.

Even after the final meeting Oct. 10, Coppola and Sinclair are being approached.

“More and more parents are contacting us and asking for information on what we’re doing,” said Sinclair, who is currently teaching Cree classes at Edmonton’s Prince Charles School.

A belief is that it is best to get as many people as possible on board for this venture.

“I think our goal at this point is to create partnerships with other organizations,” Coppola said.

And that’s not just with Edmonton-based groups.

“Our next step is to see how we can reach out beyond the city of Edmonton and to see how we can develop partnerships with outside communities,” said Sinclair, a Métis who grew up in the Saskatchewan village of Green Lake and is a member of the Canoe Lake First Nation.

Sinclair has taught at inner-city schools in Alberta and Saskatchewan for the past 28 years.

If successful, Coppola believes their plan to include more sports programming in the lives of Aboriginal youth can be greatly expanded.

“Right now we’re coming together from a small group,” she said. “Eventually I think we want to share this information province-wide and even nationally.”

This is not the first partnership for Coppola and Sinclair. The pair worked together two years ago, also through the U of A, staging events where Aboriginal youth were able to participate in basketball, volleyball and Aboriginal traditional games.