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Comox Valley school district lunch honours Indigenous knowledge keepers

“I feel like we didn’t have a voice back then.”

They’re like the grandparents of their respective schools.

The Ni’noxsola (Elders in residence) program has lined up an Indigenous Elder with a school in the Comox Valley for the past five years. It has these Elders serving Indigenous students, and all students, as keepers of knowledge.

As one of them, Dr. Evelyn Voyageur, told guests at a School District 71 luncheon honouring the program on June 9, the word ‘Elder’ was not really in the traditional language. Terms like ‘knowledge keepers’ were the way to refer to older people in the community who could share their life experience and what they know.

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Other members of the program, which operates in seven schools, shared their own experiences at the lunch. Edna Leask, another Ni’noxsola, read from Truth and Reconciliation Calls to Action booklet, particularly the subsection calling for the education system to build student capacity for intercultural understanding, empathy and mutual respect.

“There’s a lot in those two little lines,” she said.

She recounted her own experiences and how Indigenous students were not encouraged to stay within the school system when she was young.

“I feel like we didn’t have a voice back then,” she said.

Through the Ni’noxsola program now, she works with the students on beading, takes them on field trips or reads to them, in order to help all the students, Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

If much works remains, including expanding the Ni’noxsola program, that it exists marks a change from when the Elders were young.

As Voyageur recounted, until recent developments, there was no way for Indigenous students to get credit for studying their own culture the same way they would if they were enroled in subjects like music or playing sports, and she stressed the need to make more changes in the curriculum to support the students.

“I know it’s making a difference,” she said. “The children, you can see the difference in them.”

Members of the school district also spoke about the program, including district principal for Indigenous education Bruce Carlos. Along with outlining the years of planning leading up to the program, he noted the importance of having the knowledge keepers work with students, especially the 1,600 Indigenous kids in the region who come from all over Canada.

He also described how strongly school students have responded to Ni’noxsola like Voyageur who works with the Vanier community.

“When Evelyn walks into that building, it’s like a rock star’s entered the building, and that’s what she deserves,” he said. “The students gather to her and spend time with her.”

This marks the fifth years for the program, but Carlos noted how the lunch was the first time members of the program, the district and the Indigenous Education Council were all together in the same room.

In addition to the local partners, Denise Augustine, the province’s superintendent of Indigenous education, was on hand as a guest speaker. She said it filled her heart to be in Courtenay for the luncheon and talked about how grandparents, by providing answers, were like Google in Indigenous culture.

“Without them, we run the risk of not knowing who we are, where we come from and our purpose for being here,” she said.



mike.chouinard@comoxvalleyrecord.com

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