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INUVIK
Funding for the Ingamo Hall Friendship Centre has been reinstated.

Darcy Gordon says Ingamo Hall has been really busy all summer, with hours donated by volunteers being a big help to keeping it going. - Danielle Sachs/NNSL photo

The news came July 30 at the National Association of Friendship Centre's annual general meeting in Whitehorse. And it's welcome news after an announcement from the federal government in June stating that funding was being redirected to aboriginal youth job training programs.

"It was the first announcement of the morning," said board of directors president Shirley Kisoun.

"We really weren't expecting that."

The amount of funding heading to Ingamo Hall is still undetermined, but it will help bring back programs and staff positions that couldn't continue without the financial support.

Much of the youth and elder programming at the centre was cut earlier in the summer. The summer camp was cancelled and two positions were suspended: youth program co-ordinator and assistant co-ordinator.

In 2011, Ingamo Hall received $132,000 from a Heritage Canada program titled Cultural Connections for Aboriginal Youth. The program was transferred to Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada, which decided to refocus the funding into job training instead of cultural programming.

"The funding did help pay for a few positions and programs," said Kisoun.

"They were mostly geared toward culture and youth."

But the summer has been a struggle at Ingamo Hall.

The donation bin for the thrift store in the facility is overflowing and there's no one to regularly staff it.

The programs that have continued, such as jigging classes and drum dancing, are largely due to volunteer hours.

Darcy Gordon was in charge of the centre while staff were at the AGM. The centre has been really busy, according to Gordon, and there's always more that needs to be done.

"We're really short-staffed, although we've been lucky with volunteers."

Gordon said the thrift store is a much-needed resource and recently, whoever needs volunteer hours has been put in charge of it.

But Gordon said he's most looking forward to getting a youth co-ordinator back.

"That's what this building is standing for," he said.

"To keep the youth going."

Kisoun was not prepared to comment on where the reinstated funding will be going.

"The programs are probably going to be restructured and the federal government will be preparing guidelines," said Kisoun.

"Until those guidelines are on the table we don't really know what to expect, other than that it's really good news."

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