Our Youth = Our Future

The Youth of MCCN are our most valuable resource and education is the key to their future. Education is the largest item in our Budget - as it should be. We are proud of Sakastew School. It has enabled us to take control of the education of our children to ensure that they are equipped to handle the challenges of the future, while retaining the cultural heritage that is a large part of their identity as Cree people. Therefore, it came as a surprise to find out that we are failing.

A review of Sakastew School revealed some shocking statistics: There is a 53% absenteeism rate and a 12% graduation rate. This is simply unacceptable. More than half of the kids who are supposed to be at school are not there!

We directed the administration to sit down and take a serious look at this review and then we designed some long and short term measures to improve the quality of education, the attendance and ultimately the graduation rates and the success of our youth.

The work is ongoing, but some of the short term measures were a school lunch program and an educational exchange trip to China. The lunch program was entirely funded by Chief and Council and follows the principle that once the students make it to school in the morning we have to keep them there all day. If they leave school grounds for lunch, many do not make it back for the afternoon session. In addition, this was putting a huge strain on our buses having to do an extra series of lunch time runs. Now that the children are staying for lunch, they have a nutritious meal that will get them through the rest of the day and there is also extra time for intramural sports, further contributing to their health and wellbeing.

In addition to focusing on the school, I also felt that more emphasis was needed on the Youth Center and its programming. Last summer, four full time positions were funded at the Youth Center to provide enhanced summer programming and to organize last years summer games. Throughout the school year, two full time staff were kept at the center to provide programs and activities as an after school and weekend initiative. This upcoming summer will see a further extension of this service as we prepare to celebrate our 100th Birthday.

Children need to be guided, to be molded, to be shown the proper way of doing things. They need to be kept busy to allow their brains to grow and florish. As adults and parents we are ultimately responsible for this but as a community we need to ensure that the proper mechanisms are in place for this to happen. With strong social programs come strong young minds. We need to do everything we can to ensure that the youth of today become the strong leaders of tommorrow.