Eagle's Fire Youth Centre
Portage Friendship Centre

Project Summary

Sports and recreation-Activities include, but are not limited to, both organized league sports and “gym nights” at local school gymnasiums. The drop-in centre would provide table tennis, board games, cards and cultural activities. Seasonal activities would include a summer recreation program, camping, hiking, and swimming.

Personal Development & Life Skills- A youth employment officer offers career/employment assistance, job postings, employment contacts, training retention skills. An onsite computer with Internet capacity will provide youth with the tools to prepare employment documents and use of the Internet as a job/education tool.

Youth Leadership-Through involvement in the planning, development, and implementation of all UMAYC activities, leadership training and experience is naturally “built-In” to the program. To augment natural leadership development personal development workshops would be provided to “formalize” learning. Local Elders involved in this initiative will provide, cultural, and spiritual guidance to youth through activities to be determined by youth and Elders.

Main Component of Project

By engaging the youth I the initiation and implementation of the project as well as specific workshops and leadership training programs, the youth will be better enabled to take on leadership roles in their future. It should be pointed out that other youth service provision agencies are approaching PFC for direction in how to implement youth leadership training.

Project Activities

Cultural Activities: The project plans to offer Aboriginal youth the opportunity to experience their traditional cultures first hand by continuing sweat lodge ceremonies, on-going traditional workshops and naming ceremonies. The youth will also get to travel to culturally significant areas throughout the province, take part in Ojibway language lessons and learn powwow drumming and hand drumming. We will also offer courses on traditional lifestyles that include how people lived off the land (trapping, fishing and hunting) and environmental protection outings.

Social and Health Programs: The Centre will continue to provide social and health programming in a variety of areas. We will have guest speakers provide workshops on diabetes, addictions awareness, traditional parenting and suicide awareness/prevention. There will also be training sessions on healthy cooking, safe food handling, and life skills training.

Youth Leadership: Portage Friendship Centre has been in the forefront of developing youth leadership programming. Other community organizations are approaching us for material that we have developed for youth leadership initiatives. The Youth at Eagle’s Fire will be given access to these workshops as well as develop their own leadership skills through involvement in the Youth Council, mentoring groups, volunteer work and volunteer training and peer support networking.

Social Activities: Our centre tailors its hours around the needs of community youth. We also have a variety of ongoing social activities which we will continue, including: dinner and a movie at the Centre, study nights, board game nights, outdoor camping and hikes, swimming, theatre production, craft making, video game tournaments, art gallery and museum tours, and karaoke and dance nights.

Community Involvement: Eagle’s Fire Youth Centre has been involved in a number of community activities and will continue to participate in these and develop other opportunities. Community activities will include participation in the local Winterfest, Canada Day, Heritage Days and Potato Festival celebrations as well as being key players in our annual Aboriginal Day celebration. The youth will run the annual school supply drive and provide programming for disabled youth at the Centre. The youth will also undertake environmental cleanup initiatives.

Sports and Recreation: Eagles Fire will continue to offer youth a wide variety of sports and recreation options, based on the knowledge that a healthy body houses a healthy mind. These activities include, although are not limited to: snow shoeing and ski trips, bowling, swimming trips (indoor and outdoor), co-ed softball and floor hockey teams, and open gym nights at a School Division gymnasium.

Personal Development and Life Skills: The Centre will continue to provide on-site employment counseling for youth from Monday to Friday as well as instituting the following programs and activities: travel to career symposia in Winnipeg and Brandon, incentive programs to stay in school, job boards, Eagles Fire Youth Centre Book and Video Library, tours of educational facilities (universities, colleges and training institutions) and peer study and homework nights. The youth will also be assisted with communication skills development and career pathing advice.

Anticipated Results and Outcomes

The end results of this year’s project will be a clear and measurable increase in the quality of life for participants in the programmed events at Eagle’s Fire.
Part of our policy insists that anyone attending our drop-in centre provides staff with their class schedule. That along with the educational programming listed above will help decrease the frequency of school dropouts and days missed by high school students. Long range assessments, with the input of students and school counselors will show positive results in the number of youth choosing to stay in school, return to school and attend classes regularly.
The implementation of the stay in school incentives, along with peer support and study groups will pave the way to better grades being achieved and students being encouraged to continue their education. These measures, along with the Lighthouses program and Partners for Careers will show a marked decrease in unemployment levels and youth involvement in the justice system. Again, long-term data will better reflect the achievements of the project, but the short-term results are being witnessed by the staff on a regular basis, fundamentally youth staying in school and youth no longer getting into trouble with the school system and the justice system.