Red Pheasant Cree Nation breaks ground on new youth centre

Located beside Clifford Wuttunee School, the centre will feature a recreation area with pool tables, foosball tables and video games. It will also include a cultural space where the community can host feasts and where children can gather to learn from Elders.

(Alyssa Rudolph/ battlefordsNOW)

“We were losing a lot of our young youth to the gangs; we were losing them to the drugs and the jail system. We wanted to find ways to keep them busy so we stop having those trends,” Benson said.

He said those trends have already begun to decline as the Cree Nation has invested more resources into supporting young people, and the new centre is another step in that effort.

(Image Credit: Alyssa Rudolph/ battlefordsNOW)

For Benson, seeing the project advance after three years of planning has been especially meaningful.

“This is huge to me and very deep in my heart. I want to create opportunities for our youth so that they have those safe places and those safeguards so that they can feel like they mean something,” he said.

Benson added that youth have expressed excitement about the new facility during recent discussions with community leaders.

“We’re going to continue to create these opportunities for the next generation and create these places for them that they can practice their culture,” he said.

In January, Red Pheasant Cree Nation got the approval for the $25 million youth center approval. It came from the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal 41 (CHRT), a grant issued to help fund capital assets which support the delivery of First Nations Child and Family Services.

Construction is expected to begin in the coming weeks, with the project targeted for completion within 16 months.

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by Alyssa Rudolph

Red Pheasant Cree Nation breaks ground on new youth centre

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