Dane Gibson
Northern News Services

NNSL (Aug 02/99) - Northerners are asking for more control over services that are delivered in their communities, and the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs has responded.

A NWT Volunteer Strategy was developed with the help of MACA's senior advisor of volunteer development, Roslyn Smith.

The strategy looks at ways of giving voluntary and community service agencies more control over many of the programs currently being delivered by the GNWT.

"As governments get out of the health and social service areas, the volunteer sector has been challenged to fill the void," Smith said.

"Now that communities are taking responsibility for their own future through things like land claim agreements, they're saying they need training, resources and general expertise in some areas to govern themselves and provide quality services to their people."

Smith said the draft proposal was completed because they recognized that the volunteer sector was the key to building community capacity.

"As communities develop, they are demanding that they run their own affairs with less government control," she said.

"I think the real challenge in the small communities is that they will need to rely on volunteers to make the vision they have for their community come alive."

Transferring the control of services, Smith said, isn't about government downloading responsibilities onto agencies and communities that are "already stretched."

"We're looking at ways the government can understand the volunteer sector better and how we can assist and support voluntary organizations to carry out the work they do on behalf of the government," Smith said.

Last month, more than 30 delegates from volunteer agencies throughout the NWT attended a focus session in Yellowknife to go over the ideas brought forward in the strategy.

Inuvik Elders and Youth Committee co-ordinator, Delores Harley, was at the meeting. She said the idea is solid, but future meetings on the subject must be more sensitive to the aboriginal delegates.

"Down south, the people are different. They like to rush through important information where we prefer to take our time," she said of the day-and-a-half long seminar.

"Also, as the process goes along, we'd like to see more aboriginal people involved."

Harley's organization represents the Inuvialuit people. She said many of their tasks centre around keeping communities together, which is why the overall idea prevented in the MACA strategy appeals to her.

"We try and keep the communities connected and it seems the intent of the strategy is to give communities more control," Harley said.

"That's probably a good thing. How it all works itself out is another thing that we'll have to see."