Nechi celebrates 25 years of community service

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Nechi Training, Research and Health Promotions Institute, usually just called Nechi, identifies itself and its mission as "an Aboriginal movement committed to holistic healing and healthy, addictions-free lifestyles."

The most recent statistics, covering the 1998-99 fiscal year, highlight success and progress in many areas:

Last year's graduating class celebrated 171 accredited trainees. In all, Nechi provided 320 training days to 271 participants at its headquarters in St. Albert, Alta. Nechi trainers also took 490 training days to communities across Canada. Sixty-one additional people completed family violence workshops, gambling awareness and problem gambling treatment workshops, or attended Adult Children of Alcoholics through the Institute.

Sixty-eight graduated from the Community Addictions Training Series; Advanced Counsellor Training Series, 37 graduates; Native Addictions Worker Certificate Program, 29 graduates; Community Well-ness Worker Certificate Program, 14 graduates; Program Management Training Series, 19 graduates; and the Native Addictions Worker Diploma Program, 4 graduates.

Part of Nechi's mandate involves offering inter-agency liaison and community development presentations and seminars on topics as diverse as cross cultural awareness, addictions, alcoholism; drug abuse and its effects, youth leadership, community development, healing circles, conflict resolution, communication and suicide awareness. More than a dozen First Nations, health authorities, schools and the like took the opportunity to attend these informative presentations.

Nechi hosted the Aboriginal Youth Network, an internet site. It also participated in the first Alberta Aboriginal HIV/AIDS conference in April; and as a partner of Treaty 7 Tribal Council, Nechi helped start the Alberta Aboriginal Ad hoc Committee on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. Ruth Morin, Nechi's chief operating officer, is the committee's provincial representative.

Various kinds of partnerships linked Nechi with Keyano College, Blue Quills First Nation College, Grant MacEwan Community College, the Aboriginal Healing Foundation, the Aboriginal Shield Program, Arch Psychological Services, Poundmaker's Lodge Treatment Centre, Native Counselling Services of Alberta, and the St. Albert Chamber of Commerce, among others.

One of Nechi's tasks in the fiscal period was to undertake a review, in conjunction with Keyano College and Grant MacEwan Community College, of five Aboriginal education and training programs. The results will help the Institute improve programs and launch new ones. The study was undertaken with a grant from Health Canada.

Nechi has responded to numerous requests from other health and healing agencies, from international visitors and from schools for tours and resource materials. Delegates from as far away as New Zealand and Russia sought Nechi's assistance or collaboration.

Nechi staff serve proudly and prominently on more than 25 committees and boards - that's more than one for every year of its existence. The organizations run the gamut from the Aboriginal Advisory Committee at the Edmonton Institution for Women to the World Health Organization Substance Abuse Programming Committee.

The government portion of funding for the Institute comes from AADAC and NNADAP. In recent years, however, Nechi has sought more of its operating capital from contracted services than directly from government. The Friends of Nechi Society continues to be a prominent contributor through fundraising. Finally, with a push to gain academic recognition of its programs, Nechi's reliance on fee-paying students is increasing markedly - fees increased 500 per cent between 1988 and 1995, the most recent figures available show.

Nechi continues to give monetary support where it can to worthy individuals and organizations working for healthy communities. This past year, these included the First Alberta Aboriginal HIV/AIDS Conference, the Indigenous Sports Council, Indigenous Women of he Americas, South Peace Neetsan Society Breakfast Club, Sponsorship for the Esquao Awards, Institute for Advancement of Aboriginal Women, and the Canadian Cancer Society's Symbol of Hope Campaign.

An operational review conducted in 1996 summarized Nechi's achievements to date as follows:

"Nechi is a maturing organization modeling leadership in First Nations Health and Addictions. It is a rich human resource pool that is still struggling to maintain its growth in a tight economy.

" It has become a financially stable and well-organized institution which continues to develop its personality and influence. Like any maturing organization, it has become more to the community around it than it is able to fully recognize in itself. As a result, it continues to balance itself between inner growth and outward service."

Beyond this, though, Nechi remains committed to the spiritual ideals that have carried it through its first quarter century and its celebration of its 25th anniversary. Nechi staff cite the spiritual component above and before any other reason they like working there. With its frontline people striving for mental, emotional, physical and spiritual balance in all their endeavors, Nechi will continue to be a leader in its field.