Keewaywin Award recipients honoured for commitment to improving lives and strengthening communities
By Rick Garrick
KINGFISHER LAKE FIRST NATION — Long Lake #58 Councillor Judy Desmoulin and Sandy Lake educator Ralph Bekintis, originally from Garden River, were honoured at this year’s Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN) Keewaywin Awards. Desmoulin was recognized with the Emile Nakogee Award for Outstanding Leadership while Bekintis was recognized with the NAN Elder Award.
“I’ve done some work in the area of child welfare and education and health transformation,” says Desmoulin, health and social director for Long Lake #58. “So the work I’ve done helps other communities, not just my community.”
Desmoulin says her community has adopted its own Child Well-being Law.
“With that, we are able to take care of our kids the way that we want to and we always have before we were interrupted with the history of how things were taken from us,” Desmoulin says. “So we are able to turn things around by having our own law and having more community-based solutions rather than looking to government and other outside agencies. Keeping our kids home with their families is really important, rather than letting them go into care and be lost in the system.”
Desmoulin says the community has also developed their own health team with doctors and other specialists such as diabetes educators, foot specialists, psychologists, wellness workers and mental health workers.
“So we were able to develop teams that come right into the community,” Desmoulin says. “People don’t have to leave the community to access these services.”
Desmoulin says it was a “huge honour” to be chosen for the Emile Nakogee Award, which was named in honour of Emile Nakogee, an Elder from Attawapiskat on the James Bay coast who was influential in the advancement of NAN.
“It was a really nice surprise,” Desmoulin says, noting that she received many well wishes from her community. “They were really happy that I got some outside recognition.”
Bekintis, a former principal and currently head of guidance who has taught in Sandy Lake since 1984, says the NAN Elder Award was presented in recognition of the work he has done with children and youth in the community, including the running club.
“For the last 10-15 years we’ve been taking about 15 of them to Thunder Bay every year [for the Fire Fighters Ten Mile Road Race],” Bekintis says. “The plan was to get them out to more competition so they can do better. If they don’t have the competition, then they’ll never know how good they are.”
Bekintis says the running club helps keep the youth engaged in healthy activities.
“We have about 60 [children and youth] on the running club,” Bekintis says. “There’s probably over 100 who have gone through our regime already.”
Bekintis says the running club focuses on relay teams of runners as well as individual runners.
“So they have to work as a team to get some kind of result,” Bekintis says. “So we’re building up teamwork.”
The Keewaywin Awards were held on July 17 during NAN’s 38th Annual Keewaywin Conference Chiefs Meeting, held July 16-18 at Kingfisher Lake First Nation.
“On behalf of the Chiefs and Councils of NAN, I am honoured to congratulate this year’s Keewaywin Awards recipients for their outstanding achievements and commitment to improving the lives of our people and strengthening our communities,” says NAN Grand Chief Alvin Fiddler. “Their accomplishments are the result of hard work and dedication, and the leadership they demonstrate on a daily basis is an inspiration to us all.”