Teaching youth through medicine pouch making

By Rick Garrick

FORT WILLIAM FIRST NATION — A group of Fort William First Nation children and parents enjoyed creating medicine pouches during the Medicine Pouch Making and Teachings workshop on April 20 at the Fort William First Nation Community Centre. The workshop was presented by Fort William First Nation and Dilico Anishinabek Family Care as part of Fort William’s Family Cultural Program.

“It’s just a good opportunity for youth to make their own medicine pouch,” says Merry Francis, a cultural coordinator at Dilico. “It’s something they could make on their own and take home with them today. One of my co-workers suggested doing the four colours in the pony beads, which was a nice addition.”

Francis says she and two of her colleagues prepared all of the craft supplies for the workshop.

“We made 50 kits for the community today and made it kid-friendly,” Francis says. “It’s a nice introduction to the four medicines, and to be able to make their own medicine pouch and take it home with them. I brought hide so the kids could actually feel it, touch it, smell it, see what it’s actually like because it’s [from] one of our animals. It was lots of work to make these kits; they weren’t manufactured, and I actually harvested the cedar at Chippewa earlier today.”

Brooke Cheechoo, family support coordinator at Fort William  First Nation, says they are partnering with Dilico monthly to ensure they are incorporating the culture into their programming.

“Today, we’re doing medicine pouches, we’re teaching them about the four medicines and how important that is,” Cheechoo says. “It’s important to teach the youth about our culture.”

Cheechoo says they do the program on Monday evenings.

“We switch up the programming every week,” Cheechoo says. “We do cooking for the families every Monday, we provide dinner. We go swimming, we take them on outings, we go to the movies, we do lots of cultural programming.”

Jessica Bannon, a parent who attended the workshop with three children, says the families receive great programming during the program.

“Tonight, we’re making medicine pouches — we’re going to add some beads and then add four medicines,” Bannon says, adding that it was an opportunity to teach her children about some of their culture. “It’s great to get together with community members or family, the kids get to run around and expend some energy.”

Lauren Waller, a parent who attended the workshop with two children, says her family enjoys the program.

“I like that you don’t have to register and you can just show up — you get a free meal out of it and a craft and sometimes a presentation,” Waller says, noting they have had paint nights and for Easter they coloured pre-baked cookies with icing. “Depending on what Monday it is, they have presentations, APS (Anishinabek Police Service) will come in or Dilico will come in and do a presentation, and sometimes … they take all the kids either to the movies for the night, or they go bowling [or] swimming.”

Michelle Yantz, a parent who attended the workshop with five children, says her family loves the program.

“The kids love it, they love coming, sometimes it’s just colouring pages, sometimes it’s painting stuff, sometimes they get a cookie decorating kit that they will work on, cultural programming,” Yantz says. “I really appreciate and love that they do this. I’d say about every three months they do some big event, like we all go to the movies or we all go to swimming.”