THUNDER BAY — The Oshkatisaak Youth Council brought together more than 100 youth from 49 First Nations across the Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) territory for its Annual Youth Gathering.
The gathering invited two youths from each First Nation to share their stories and learn about their culture.
Summer Wabasse, a member of the Oshkatisaak Youth Council representing Webequie First Nation, explained that over the weekend, they did a lot of different workshops, got people out on the land a bit and had many great speakers come in.
“I think this conference is such an amazing opportunity for NAN youth to come to the city and get to meet people from other communities and get a bit outside of their comfort zone,” said Wabasse.
“I think that it’s a really empowering conference. It’s really great that NAN brings in so many different role models for people to look up to and it provides a really safe space for youth to take those healthy risks and be empowered.”
While she said NAN youth or youth in general, don’t necessarily have to come to conferences like this to get involved in their community and be a leader, the conference is held every year for NAN youth and she encourages people to apply.
She added they’re also taking applications for their youth council at NAN later this year.
“For people who want to take that active advocacy role and are more comfortable with that public speaking and the like, I do highly encourage them to apply,” said Wabasse.
On day one, all of the council held a workshop on Indigenous youth leadership.
So far, Kohen Chisel, also a part of the council, said they had a really good attendance rate and dialogue in each of their workshops.
“We have youth enjoying, laughing (and) making connections with other youth across the NAN territory,” said Chisel.
He explained at the gathering on Sunday that they are learning about empowerment, financial literacy and skills to really set youth up for success.
“For things like financial literacy, we want to make sure that our youth are ready for the future, so we want to set them up with the skills that they need,” said Chisel.
“Or if they choose to go out for post-secondary or if they choose to leave their communities or the city, we want them to be well prepared.”
Chisel added that in terms of sharing their stories, the council also works in the political world and hears so much about the uncertainty of losing their culture and people, so it’s so good to have the youth gathered up for the weekend.
“This gathering has really uplifted us,” said Chisel.
“We really needed this because we have a youth drum group of young men who are drumming and they’re sharing their teachings and we have youth who retain their language and we have youth that are so well versed in their culture and the protocols that when I see this like I know ‘we’ll be okay. We’re doing fine. Our future is fine.’”
Tyler Faubert, the youth cultural camps coordinator at NAN, focuses a lot on land-based activities for his job.
His workshop talked about survival situations when out on the land, including teaching youth to build a small quinzee model — Indigenous snow shelter — and discussing what they need to bring in the bush to be prepared.
“We always hear stories of people who go out in the wintertime and then they don’t come back that night, so then we got to go find them. Everybody gets together and it’s for those moments that we try to prepare people so that we have a positive outcome to that story,” said Faubert.
He added they also talked about the more long-term piece of the procurement of clean water and food, including how to harvest in the winter and set rabbit snares.
“It’s very important to respect all those animals out there, everything that’s out there. It’s very important to honour them and do it the right way,” said Faubert.
He said, going over all these little pieces and things people don’t think about, one just as basic and easy as telling people where you’re going.
“It’s so important to build, develop and foster a connection in our young people to that land,” said Faubert.
“You learn so much when you’re out there, not only about the land but about yourself and there’s so much healing to be had out there.”
