Darrell Greer
Northern News Services

RANKIN INLET (Mar 10/99) - Input, ideas and interaction from every segment of the population is one of the most important aspects of developing community-based programs, says Mike Lickers of Ghost River Rediscovery International.

Lickers spent the past week in Rankin Inlet working with the hamlet's Friendship Centre in community consultations to help put together a proposal for a Rankin Inlet Aboriginal Youth Centre Program through funding provided by the National Association of Friendship Centres.

The program is intended to increase youth services presently offered in the community and Lickers has worked a number of years assisting in the development of community-based programs for aboriginal youth centres.

Lickers describes his role as one of a facilitator working to bring out interest in the community, not coming into the hamlet to tell people the proper way of community planning. He says his main focus is to open people's eyes to their own skill levels, bring out the skills the community has and allow it to be put in a context other people will understand.

He says interaction is the key to community development, not bringing ideas to Rankin that Calgary, a large urban area with much different cultures and traditions, would use.

"We've arranged to have meetings with elders, youth and various agencies to get their feedback on information we might tailor to fit into the proposal. I think when you do a true community vision, you want to get as much reflection from as many different people as you can and capture all age groups," says Lickers.

"Elders' opinions and people in the 30-50 age group are important, as well as the youth in the community. They're the leaders of the future and are going to want a say about how or what their future's going to look like. We also have to consider the people who aren't here yet, the unborn future visionaries of what this community's going to do."

The most important thing with youth is getting them to feel comfortable enough to share, says Lickers. He says that's a challenge, coming from a completely different community to talk to young people who don't know him.

Lickers tries to show he's here so they can share their views and make their points. He says the Rediscovery approach is to remove barriers by initiating activities to make young people feel comfortable and then allow them to speak on their own behalf.

"Once they're comfortable, the words flow pretty freely about how they want to see things change, ideas they may have, future plans for themselves, things they may have gone through or even things already in place they want to see continue."

Competition for funding is intense and Gerry Pflueger, hired by the Friendship Centre to put proposals together, says the funding being sought is only available through friendship centres. She's hoping that with well over 100 friendship centres across the country, the fact this is the only friendship centre in Nunavut will be an advantage.

"I think it would look pretty bad if the only friendship centre in Nunavut puts in a proposal and doesn't get funded, so I'm hoping that's going to be a bit of an edge for us, but there are no guarantees," says Pflueger.

"We have to do the absolute best job that we can and then do a little praying."