Paul Bickford
Northern News Services

Hay River (Sep 23/02) - A friendship centre sounds like a place that is open to everyone. And that is exactly what Sharon Pekok wants everyone to know.

Sharon Pekok is the program co-ordinator at the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre in Hay River. - Paul Bickford/NNSL photo

Since June, she has been program co-ordinator at the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre in Hay River.

She says one of her goals is to increase community participation in the centre.

"I think sometimes people think the friendship centre is only for aboriginal people," she says. "It's for everybody."

She adds that membership to the friendship centre is more than reasonable at $1 per year.

"It doesn't cost you much to be a member," she says with a laugh.

Pekok explains her work basically involves implementing programs to provide people with cultural, educational and recreational activities.

Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre offers various programs. This past summer, it ran a day camp for children and offered a one-week camping trip.

This fall, it will offer such things as classes in traditional sewing and the South Slavey language. It is also currently looking for an instructor for Cree language classes.

Pekok says people are also looking forward to the next family dance, since there was very positive feedback from the first such event.

She hopes to be able to offer more activities that involve the whole family.

Pekok encourages everyone to be become involved in the activities. "You can do a lot more if a lot more people are involved."

Pekok, whose maiden name is Martel, was born and raised in Hay River. Her mother is from the Hay River Reserve, while her father is a Cree from Fort Vermilion, Alta. Noting that she spent much of her youth with her grandmother on the Hay River Reserve, Pekok says, "I lean more towards my grandma and her Slavey."

Pekok and her husband, Patrick from Inuvik, have two children -- Joseph, 10, and Herbert, 6. Prior to coming to the friendship centre, she worked for almost a decade at the Nats'ejee K'eh Alcohol and Drug Treatment Centre on the Hay River Reserve.

Pekok, 41, says she enjoys her new role at the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre.

"I like working with people," she says. "I'm always willing to learn something new."