Derek Neary
Northern News Services

FORT SIMPSON (Nov 05/99) - While Bompas school's cultural camp across the river has offered some great cultural opportunities for students, school staff are being brought up to speed on how they can become more effective in that setting.

A cultural awareness workshop was held with that in mind last Friday.

"I realized that there were a lot of them that didn't have any experience," said Mary Jane Nayally, the language specialist at Bompas. She added that the camp will be much more effective if the students see their teachers as active participants. "So that way everyone appreciates what we're doing."

Previously, it was Nayally and a few other resource people who were primarily responsible to instruct students during camp cultural activities such as setting snares, skinning rabbits, gutting fish.

Although Friday's workshop was held indoors due to a number of circumstances, it was designed to further inform educational staff of customs and practices that take place at the Dene camp and elsewhere. Principal Terry Jaffray said there was some discussion of ceremonies and the roles that men and women play in those ceremonies.

"It was really good because the way they had organized the workshop, we were so relaxed. People got to share things a lot ... and dispel myths," she said. "I think people just felt better about asking questions -- especially because most of our staff aren't new. So, after a while, it's kind of embarrassing to ask because you think, 'Well, I should know that.' But we were made to feel relaxed about asking questions."

An internal school review conducted last year -- which included input from teachers, students and parents -- underscored the need for greater cultural awareness, according to Jaffray.

Gerald Antoine, Mike Cazon, Andy Norwegian and Nayally were the other facilitators for the workshop, held last Friday afternoon.

Antoine recounted some of the history of the Dene people and gave an overview of some of the current political idealogy such as self government.

Norwegian gave the staff some language lessons and taught them how to greet elders and others. Jaffray learned how to say, "Hi, how are you?" in Slavey, and proved it by reciting it.

The orientation apparently went over very well.

"Once we were done we got feedback from the staff members and they all seemed to enjoy it," Nayally said. "We got a lot of good feedback."

Jaffray said more workshops of a similar nature have been planned to occur throughout the year. That's something Nayally is glad to hear.

"It's a very good direction that we're heading," she said. "I'm hoping to see a lot more of this kind of activity happening throughout the school. I'd like to see a lot of them using the Dene Kede curriculum in the school ... if they do use these kinds of approaches in the future, it will be really helpful for us."