Nechi banquet draws hundreds

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Hundreds of people enjoyed a formal dinner hosted by the Nechi Training and Research Health Promotions Institute on Nov. 20. The Celebrating Success banquet held at the Northlands AgriCom in Edmonton was in celebration of Nechi's 25 years of service from 1974 to 1999.

"Plans for Nechi's celebrations began in Oct. 1998, so it took us over a year to put everything into place. We had a number of options to celebrate our 25th year. Rather than have just one big event, Nechi decided to spread out its celebration throughout the year," said Carol Jenkins, communications officer at Nechi. "One of things we did was start off the year with a round dance to honor our past board members. During the summer we had a reunion camp-out for past Nechi trainees and employees, and decided to end our year with a banquet. The National Addictions Awareness Week is observed the same week and we thought that it would be fitting to celebrate Nechi's 25 years of success with National Addictions Awareness Week. One of the reasons we chose the AgrCom was because it could hold a large crowd," she said.

The event included a dinner, a traditional Native grand entry, a mini performance by the White Buffalo traditional dancers, medal presentations, Nechi board member speakers, guest speaker, actor Gordon Tootoosis, and entertainment by singer Laura Vinson.

"We had Gordon Tootoosis as our guest speaker primarily because he was the kind of person who's been there and done that. He describes himself as an alcoholic, one who's cleaned up his act. Who is recognized as an Aboriginal role model, and a traditional family man. Someone who had the qualities that people wanted," said Jenkins. "We were very impressed. He shared with the audience the struggles he faced before staying sober. He was an honest, come-from-your-heart speaker and that was what we were looking for," she said.

Past students, instructors and invited guests attended the medal presentations to more than 100 people.

"We decided to honor people from communities all across Canada with a medal. We gave the people in the communities the option to nominate people who they thought should be nominated. We thought that the communities themselves would probably know who these people were. We decided to do this because there are a lot of unsung heroes across the country," said Jenkins. "We sent the word out about the nominations way back in March or so.

"As part of the nominating process, we asked people to tell us why they thought the person they were nominating would be worthy to receive a medal. We were surprised when the nominations started flooding in. One of the requirements we asked of the nominees was to attend the banquet. The reason being was that we wanted to celebrate with the people of the communities. If we just sent in a medal, we would have not had the opportunity to honor them publicly. A lot of the people who were honored were not the kind who were going to blow their own horn. People can further identify them as what they represent in their communities," she said.

Situated on 25 acres of land just north of Edmonton, The Nechi Institute began humbly in 1974. It's purpose was to meet the growing need of Aboriginal people in addictions and recovery from addictions. It slowly evolved into a successful, culturally sensitive training, research and health promotion organization. Today Nechi provides counsellors, community service agencies and other members of the helping professions a training facility. Considered a national movement, Nechi is healing Aboriginal people from coast to coast, and is increasing understanding and support for the many different cultures of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people. The institute has trained counsellors, health care workers, and educators from all across Canada and abroad. The organization believes that alcohol, drugs, gambling and other addictive dependency behaviors are diseases that can be treated and that people can be led into recovery. he facility shares the centre with Poundmaker's Lodge, an Aboriginal treatment centre. The combined facility includes training rooms, a cafeteria, gymnasium, a residential facility for up to 44 trainees, and up to 54 Poundmaker's Lodge clients. It continually develops new programs and courses as community needs arise.

"Over eight hundred people attended the dinner, from across Canada. We had someone attend from as far east as New Brunswick, from a remote community in the far North, people from British Colombia, and people from the Prairie provinces," said Jenkins. "We got a lot of good reviews. They were impressed with the dinner, the entertainment and the whole evening altogether. It was a lot of work but everyone did a good job. It is a bit too early, but we were thinking of making an event like this one an annual event," she said.