Peigan Nation targets child poverty

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Child poverty is the focus recent initiatives on the Peigan reserve in southwestern Alberta. Awareness of the issue is the aim of a chalk out, where statistics and information regarding child poverty will be written on the sidewalk at the Peigan administration building, sponsored by the Peigan Youth Task Force.

"Child poverty isn't only about not having enough to eat or having tattered clothing. Tt is also about missed opportunities and everything a child doesn't have that is needed in order to survive," said Myron Strikes With A Gun, executive chair of the task force and a Grade 11 student at Piikani Nation Secondary School.

Strikes With A Gun started the Peigan Youth Task Force this past August with one of its goals to focus attention on the child poverty issue. Along with the chalk out, the group hopes to be involved in food drives, community meals and breakfast clubs.

The group's initiatives have received attention from federal New Democratic leader, Alexa McDonough. Strikes With A Gun sent an e-mail message to McDonough, in which he stated, "The Peigan Youth Task Force has established a Child Poverty Project. The goal of this project is to eliminate child poverty [in] our community...."

In response, McDonough congratulated Strikes With A Gun for his "important work," stating, "Initiatives such as yours set a wonderful example for all Canadians, including Members of Parliament."

The group will be holding the chalk out this month to mark the 10th anniversary of a resolution passed by the House of Commons calling for the end of child poverty in this country by the year 2000. The chalk out had originally been scheduled for late November, but snowfall forced a postponement.

Strikes With A Gun and six other youth from the Peigan reserve attended a Students Commission of Canada conference in Montreal in October. The focus of the conference was to educate youth about poverty and related issues and this is the information the task force members will be sharing with the Peigan people in the chalk out.

Today, there are 1.5 million children in Canada who are living in poverty. And the Peigan reserve has its share of children in that category.

"[Child poverty] is like sniffing glue," said Kathleen Grant, co-ordinator with Peigan Child and Family Services. "It's shame-based and well-hidden."

Grant is part of the second initiative that's aimed at helping children and their parents.

Grant is hoping to enlist the help of the Peigan Youth Task Force in carrying out surveys to determine the need of a food bank on the reserve.

"The money [people] get from welfare is not enough for people to live on for a month," she explained. "With living expenses going up, everything else should be going up too so they can live half way comfortably on this."

Grant stressed that the food bank would not be for people on social assistance alone. She said there are times when emergencies hit and money is needed elsewhere. At times like this, she said, a food bank would come in handy.

Grant sees the food bank as a stop gap measure that people would use until they could provide for themselves. Offering services, such as budgeting and shopping skills, would help users stretch their dollars and get more out of the money they do have coming in.

Surveys are still in the process of being carried out. Grant is trying to determine how many people would make use of the food bank as well as would donate their time. But she also needs to secure a building for the food bank and supplier of food staples. Because she wants to offer services along with the food bank, she needs to acquire funding to pay for a full-time manager and an intake worker.

"There's no money from the government for this," she said.

Grant has been receiving direction for the project from the nearby Blood reserve, which has its own food bank. Grant also wants to have checks in place to make sure the food bank doesn't get abused.

"That's why we need an intake worker, somebod to help with th inventory," she said.

Grant had initially hoped to have the food bank operational by January, but spring is now looking as the earliest it will be up and running.