Yellowknife (Mar 31/03) - Federal funding ends today for youth resource centres operated by friendship centres across Canada.

That will affect five youth centres in the NWT, located in Hay River, Fort Smith, Inuvik, Fort Simpson and Fort Providence.

The Department of Canadian Heritage provided funding under a five-year program called Urban Multipurpose Aboriginal Youth Centres (UMAYC). The NWT centres, along with one in Whitehorse and another in Rankin Inlet, received a total of $1.55 million annually.

Vern Jones, the executive director of the Soaring Eagle Friendship Centre in Hay River, says Canadian Heritage says it intends to extend the program another two years.

"This is about a year and a half now that we've heard that, but I haven't seen anything in writing to date."

A renewal of the program is being negotiated by a team from the National Association of Friendship Centres, says Jones, who represents the NWT and Nunavut centres on the national body.

The various programs at the Youth Resource Centre in Hay River will not end today (March 31), he says.

"One of the programs we're going to have operating until probably the middle of June is our tutoring program."

However, other programs will operate on a volunteer basis, he adds. "They're just not going to have the hours we had."

A recent benefit concert in Hay River raised $3,900 for the Youth Resource Centre.

At Zhahti Koe Friendship Centre in Fort Providence, two youth workers are being laid off because of the end of UMAYC.

Executive director Paschalina Thurber says youth programming will continue with a youth intervention worker and a program co-ordinator, who are funded through other sources.

She says it would be nice to get the UMAYC funding renewed, and she hopes there will soon be some positive news from Ottawa.

"Our kids shouldn't suffer because we ran out of money," Thurber says.

In Inuvik, Gloria Allen, the executive director of Ingamo Hall Friendship Centre, says they knew the funding cut was coming and prepared for it.