Morley welcomes world educators

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It's been more than six years in the making, but this summer, the world will be coming to Morley, Alta., when the community hosts the sixth World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education (WIPCE) from Aug. 4 to 10.

The First Nations Adult and Higher Education Consortium (FNAHEC), the host committee for this year's event, has been working to bring the conference to southern Alberta since 1996, when they first bid on hosting the triennial conference the year it was held in Albuquerque, N.M.

The first bid failed, with Hawaii being chosen to host the event. But when the committee re-bid in 1999 at the Hawaii conference, their efforts met with success.

According to conference co-ordinator Phil Beaumont, the second FNAHEC bid was successful for a number of reasons.

"One of the Elders at Nakoda had a vision that there would be a large gathering of people from around the world on the Nakoda land. And so that was how it ended up at Stoney Park, when we did receive it."

Information about the Elder's vision was included in the bid, Beaumont explained, and her vision of what the conference would be like was the same as how the bid committee envisioned it should be.

Another part of the bid that won the consortium the right to host the conference was its use of learning lodges in its conference plans.

"All of our workshops are going to be in learning lodges, which would be tipis. Because that's how our traditional education was," Beaumont said. "Our children learned in the lodges, and they went outside and hunted, and had games. So it was kind of like an open air education-not confined to the universities and the high school buildings that we have today where its inside a room, and all we're learning are the three Rs and so forth. Our traditional education was centered around the lodges... I think the bidding committee saw that and they were really impressed with how the conference was going to be set up."

Currently there are plans to have more than 70 learning lodges set up for the conference. The lodges will be used for small group workshops, with between 20 and 30 participants.

About 2,000 people have already registered to attend the conference, and although the registration deadline has passed, late registrations are still being accepted, although a $100 late fee will be charged, bringing the fee up to $500 per person.

Although the slate of presenters had yet to be finalized, Beaumont said close to 300 presenters have been confirmed, representing more than 25 different countries.

The theme of this year's conference is The Answers Are Within Us. The goals of the event include celebrating successes in preserving and promoting Indigenous languages and cultures, acknowledging and celebrating the importance of ancestral wisdom in continuing traditions, recognizing effective ways of achieving and improving the balance between the spiritual, mental, physical and emotional within Indigenous communities, and emphasizing the importance of spiritual well-being and of having good spiritual relations with everything in nature.

"Some of the presenters have doctorates, masters, and some are Elders, and some are students. So we have a large variety of people," Beaumont said.

That diversity is carried over into the entertainment planned for the conference, he said.

Although the conference is on Indigenous education, the event is geared to both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. In fact, Beaumont said, a number of non-Aboriginal teachers, who work in Aboriginal schools, are planning to attend, as are government people who work in education at the provincial and federal levels.

The conference will start with opening ceremonies on Aug. 4, which will include a parade of organizers from the FNAHEC, which represents 10 Aboriginal education institutes from western Canada.

Joining the FNAHEC representatives will be the three Nakoda chiefs, who will welcome delegates in the three languages of the host Nations-Blackfoot, Cree nd Nakoda.

Following the welcoming, there will be a parade of the visiting Indigenous nations.

Among the dignitaries expected to take part in the opening ceremonies are National Chief Matthew Coon Come and FNAHEC president Marie Smallface Marule.

Another highlight of the conference will come later in the day, with a traditional feast, featuring bison, wild rice, and other foods developed by the Indigenous people of North America over the centuries.

As with past conferences, an exchange of traditional gifts will also take place at this year's conference. The gifts for the exchange are being made by school children from the different reserves represented on the FNAHEC, who will be bringing them to the conference, and exchanging them with the delegates.

While much of the conference focuses on bringing the world to Western Canada, with Indigenous people from across the globe coming here to share their knowledge, two days have been set aside for bringing Western Canada to the world. During those days, conference delegates can chose from among 10 tours to different communities to learn about them and some of the programs they are offering. Any delegates choosing not to take the tours can stay on site and watch demonstrations of traditional Indigenous games.

Another highlight of the conference will take place when the time comes to announce the winning bid for the next WIPCE conference, Phil Beaumont explained, when a seldom-used ceremony will be performed: the capturing ceremony.

With the ceremony, which will be part of the conference's closing celebrations, a group of warriors will dance into the circle, where they will sing a special song. They will then go into the crowd, find the person representing the successful bid for the 2005 WIPCE conference, and "capture" them, and lead them into the centre of the circle.

"And then they'll announce where the next world conference will be. I think that's a very unique ceremony the public has hardly ever seen," he said.

For more information about the World Indigenous Peoples Conference on Education, call the 2002 WIPCE office at 403-258-1775, or visit the conference Web site at www.fnahec.org/wipce2002.