United Nations lauds Nipawin Project

By Jason Warick, The StarPhoenix

Spencer Head stocks pudding and oatmeal bars on shelves at the Pineland Co-op, unaware he's become part of an international experiment.

"Hmmm, interesting," the Red Earth Cree Nation resident said with a laugh. "I was just happy to get this job. It's bolstered my confidence."

Head, 22, is one of eight Red Earth interns working at the Co-op. For four months, they'll work in the lumber yard, gas bar, delicatessen and produce department.

Co-op general manager Greg Schoonbaert said he was happy to join the internship program, which includes other local businesses. He hopes the interns will consider a permanent job at Co-op.

"We're very well supported by aboriginal communities, and we don't have enough aboriginal employees. "We've all learned a lot and this is certainly working out really well," Schoonbaert said.

Red Earth and surrounding First Nations have struggled with unemployment rates of more than 70 per cent. Head languished on social assistance for several months before landing this internship. He's hoping to use this experience to eventually become an electrician or plumber.

The internships are part of a massive "sustainability plan" underway in this region located roughly 300 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon. The plan has attracted the attention of the United Nations. The Nipawin area will become a "living laboratory" and its progress will be compared to regions of Australia, Peru and other countries.

"This is of global significance. This is an opportunity for Nipawin to show the world how to be sustainable," United Nations University development expert Charles Hopkins said in a recent telephone interview from his Toronto home.

Hopkins had just returned from work in Austria and China and was leaving for Peru the next morning. He's worked for the United Nations and other agencies in more than 60 countries and said he was extremely impressed during a recent visit to Nipawin.

"There seems to be something genuine going on there, an honest attempt to bring about change," Hopkins said. Sustainability is about being environmentally friendly, but it's also about education, housing and the successful coexistence of First Nations people and more recent arrivals, Hopkins said. "How can these groups co-operate but maintain their distinctness? People across the world are trying to figure that out," said Hopkins, who will return to Nipawin later this year.

Norman Head, a former chief of the nearby Shoal Lake First Nation, agreed things are changing for the better.

"We get along with each other. I can speak Cree on the streets without people staring at me," he said. "We're trying to not be scared of each other anymore."

The lineup for hamburgers and hotdogs snakes through the Nipawin Senior's Hall and out to the parking lot. Nipawin, population 5,400, recently became one of the smallest towns in North America with a chapter of the global homebuilding charity Habitat for Humanity. Several hundred area residents came to support the kickoff luncheon.

One after another, residents walked to the microphone and announced donations. The local credit union gave $25,000. Retired SaskTel employees donated $20,000. There was $20,000 from the Nipawin Lions, $10,000 from the Elks and $5,000 from the Knights of Columbus. "It's for our community," said Terry Farden, a Nipawin town councillor who plays for a local senior hockey team called the Aging Bulls. The Bulls donated $10,000. "We're also trying to think regionally. Maybe another team will hear about this and take it up there," Farden said. By the end of the luncheon, Habitat organizers were more than halfway toward their $300,000 fundraising goal.

A family will soon be selected to occupy the first Habitat home. The family and an army of community volunteers will build the 1,000-square-foot, split-level house this summer. "If people are willing to do the work, that's great," Nipawin senior Elaine Hunter said as she handed a cash donation to volunteers at a side table.

The Habitat build, the First Nations internship program and other measures show Nipawin and area is ready to become a model for the world, Mayor Lawrence Rospad said. "It's hard to fathom what's going on here. It's absolutely amazing," Rospad said. . . . Rospad left the Habitat event, hopped in his truck and headed to another event.

As he passed the downtown area, the former Nipawin school principal discussed the physical and emotional scar left in the town following a fatal 2008 gas explosion. Jack Boxall, 78, and Brent, 51, were killed and several others were seriously injured. Several lots in the downtown core rocked by the blast remain bare, but Rospad and others intend to change that.

Later this month, 40 students from the University of Regina will descend on the town. They'll stay for two months. A complete inventory will be conducted for each downtown building and lot, an essential first step toward attracting investment, Rospad said.

The students will also help create a new waste management and recycling strategy. They'll be assigned work in areas such as regional land management, wind power, biomass fuel, housing, employment and engagement of aboriginal communities.

"We know the growth is coming, but what's our environmental future? We're attacking this on all fronts, so giddy up! Let's go, boys!" Nipawin's economic development director Kai Bath said.

Chief administrative officer Roy Tutschak agreed. "There are so many irons in the fire. It's awesome," Tutschak said. "I wish we could bottle it."

In the long term, uniting people and being environmentally responsible are "just as important as roads and sewers," Regina sustainability expert Lyle Benko said. "They are very proactive up there. That whole area has so much potential," said Benko, whose United Nations-affiliated group, Regional Centres of Expertise, has worked closely with Nipawin officials.

Benko and Hopkins said the entire province, from Nipawin to Craik, is positioned well to lead the world in sustainable development. Compared with several RCE projects across Canada, "I have the feeling Saskatchewan is in the lead at the moment," Hopkins said. "Saskatchewan is in the midst of an economic boom. What are you going to do with it? I'm hearing people in Nipawin looking at the big picture."

A few blocks from Main Street, Rospad's truck pulled up to the Oasis Community Centre. Here, more than 40 low-functioning mentally ill residents get counselling, work placements and other supports.

There's a wide array of programs for at-risk youth. Former chief Norman Head, now a cultural adviser at Oasis, created a "healing circle" program for First Nations elders and former residential school students.

Oasis runs on an $800,000 annual budget from various sources, but CEO Chris Hudyma estimates the centre has saved various levels of government more than $5 million in medication, hospital, social services and court costs. Hudyma said Nipawin will benefit both socially and economically if they can "bridge the gap" between marginalized people and other residents.

Later that day, Rospad and other town councillors arrive at Oasis for a special ceremony with Head and others. Rospad commented on the town's 20-year vision document, which lists improved relations with First Nations people as one of the top priorities. The visitors were presented with a painting by a local First Nations artist depicting the residential school experience. It will be hung in the Nipawin town council chambers.

Such an act would have been inconceivable even a decade or two ago, given the previous divisions between aboriginal and nonab original residents, Rospad said. Current Shoal Lake Chief Marcel Head said racism, isolation and other barriers remain, but agreed things are slowly improving. His First Nation has produced a crop of recent electrical and plumbing graduates and eight band members got jobs in the month of January alone. A major biomass project is in development.

Head hopes the continued efforts will bring down Shoal Lake's 70 per cent unemployment rate. "That racism still exists, but there's quite a lot of enthusiasm. We hope to create more links with neighbouring towns and villages," Head said. "We're trying our best."

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