The new Onion Lake Teepee Monument will have a grand opening celebration Sept. 3. (Submitted photo/Laili Yazdani)

By Angela Brown

Preserving culture

Onion Lake teepee aims to connect education with tradition

Aug 27, 2019 | 3:13 PM

The Onion Lake Cree Nation has announced it is planning a grand opening for its new teepee monument that is part of The Virtues and Community Belonging Project.

Organizers helped develop the 31.5 ft. metal structure in an effort to increase parental engagement in the education system.

“It’s a great community development project,” Onion Lake RCMP community program officer Laili Yazdani said.

The teepee will feature a large wind chime made of metal tablespoons donated by the community’s families. Each spoon has inscribed a family name and a community virtue that is practised at home. The structure is located in front of Kihew Waciston Cree Immersion School in Onion Lake.

The aim of the project is to encourage more parents to get involved in the education system by celebrating identity and belonging with families in the community.

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Plans are to celebrate families and community virtues each year at the monument on Family Day.

The full project team includes Eagleview Comprehensive High School staff Peggy Harper, Brenda Rediron-Chocan, Nelson Carter and Aron Strumecki, Onion Lake Department of Education staff member Terry Clarke, and Yazdani, who worked with Harper and Rediron-Chocan to initiate the effort. They met to talk about what could be done to increase parental engagement in the education system.

Many in the community are expected to attend the opening ceremony, including elders, youth, parents, the chief and council as well as some RCMP members.

“I think it’s just a great celebration of working together and seeing the fruits of our labour,” Yazdani said.

Harper said the project will serve a healing role, to help First Nation families impacted by the residential school system.

“It’s almost a sense of belonging,” she said. “A lot of our parents are lost, as well as our youth, universally throughout the First Nations across Canada. We thought how can we bring some closure and community involvement.”

The project was funded by the RCMP Family Violence Initiative and Onion Lake Cree Nation.

Harper said there are three phases to the project. For the second phase, families are invited to put a sign with the name of the virtue they chose, such as love or respect for example, above their door. A third phase is being developed to bring together the community’s agencies for a another project for the future.

The celebration will take place Sept. 3 at 1 p.m.

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angela.brown@jpbg.ca

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