Sports for youth gets shot in arm

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The man responsible for managing the first-ever North American Indigenous Games back in 1990 has resurfaced and is back in track shoes. This time, Harold Burden has the monumental task of organizing Aboriginal youth sports in Edmonton.

Urban centres have gone largely ignored and neglected in terms of sports for Aboriginal youth.

"There's no overall agency to mobilize the kids. We have the most Native kids in any of Alberta's urban centres, but very little in the way of programs for them. Kids are falling through the cracks," Burden said.

Burden is currently visiting schools and Aboriginal organizations that deal with youth to get their involvement in his urban sports movement.

Burden has also organized a committee made up of urban youth who meet to set the priorities of the initiative and is holding an open competition for a logo, name and team colors for the project that will garner the winners a $200 prize for each category.

He hopes the group will also be able to organize sports camps and coaching clinics before the end of summer, and is looking for volunteers to act as coaches and officials.

"We're just starting to build alliances with different people, organizations and services," said Burden. For example, the group has affiliations with the Brad Hortie Gym for boxing and Ben Calf Robe School Tae Kwon Do instructor, Rex Johnson.

The primary focus at this time, according to Burden, is to develop teams in soccer and volleyball, and to hold basketball and football camps, especially to assist Aboriginal high school students who need that little extra to qualify for their school teams.

However, these are not the only sports that Burden wants established. He hopes to gradually include most sports and wants to put together what he tentatively calls Aboriginal Team Edmonton, a group of individuals with backgrounds in many different sports that would train to compete in a variety of competitions, including school events, community leagues and the North American Indigenous Games.

Thanks to dollars from Canadian Heritage through it's Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centre Initiative, the gloomy sports picture in places like Edmonton could change drastically.

"Initiatives such as this can certainly open doors that just were not there before," said Val Kaufman, senior program officer with Canadian Heritage and the person who manages Aboriginal youth programs for the entire province.

The Aboriginal Youth and Family Wellbeing and Education Society in Edmonton sponsors the project run by Burden. It is an organization that works extensively with urban Aboriginal students at the grade school level.