Guy Quenneville
Northern News Services
Friday, April 20, 2007

YELLOWKNIFE - As Yellowknife and the rest of the country celebrates National Volunteer Week, Yellowknife's main supporter of volunteerism finds itself with no money.

Volunteer NWT does not even have enough funds to post newspaper ads to mark the week-long event April 15-21, said Aggie Brockman, co-ordinator of Volunteer NWT.

Brockman said the lack of funding is frustrating, because "we accomplished some good things, like a website and a newsletter. We were just starting to get that sense of community in the volunteer sector," she said.

And if no extra funding comes in soon, Volunteer NWT may not be able to serve its mandate.

"Over time, if we don't manage to get more funding, that will certainly have an impact," said Brockman.

Heritage Canada slashed the organization's funding last fall.

Volunteer NWT received $130,000 in annual funding, which went to conducting research in the volunteer sector and providing resources for individual volunteer organizations, such as a newsletter that helped point out other possible funding sources.

Brockman said the money also went towards many other useful programs, such as training manuals for women volunteers and training seminars for other would-be volunteers.

"We're just finishing up some teacher resources at the elementary school level," said Brockman. "Also, handbooks for high school students on how to find volunteer work."

That latter project is especially useful because "students in the NWT have to fulfil 25 hours of community service in order to graduate from high school. The handbook helps them to make the most of their experience.

"These projects are being finished with previous money," said Brockman.

But Brockman has to think about the future, and is looking for other funding sources, such as the GNWT, which already contributes $20,000 a year.

"I think further GNWT support would be consistent with the Volunteer Support Initiative that it adopted a couple years ago," said Brockman.

The declaration of the Initiative's goal's and objectives includes a plan to promote "active participation and good citizenship through volunteering."

Brockman said the lack of funds is especially perplexing given the high rate of volunteerism in the NWT.

A 2004 survey conducted by Imagine Canada and Statistics Canada found that more than half of NWT residents over 15 years of age volunteer with a group.

That's good reason to cheer, said Brockman. But Northerners shouldn't let it get to their heads given the current funding situation.

"In the NWT, we have a lot of activities that depend largely on volunteers," said Brockman.

"There would be virtually no sports events for kids were it not for volunteers. We

wouldn't have a lot local services at our hospital without volunteers."

Josianne Jalbert, a spokesperson for Heritage Canada, said funding for the five-year-old Canada Volunteerism Initiative was deemed expendable last year because "it did not meet the priorities of the federal government."

She couldn't say why it was no longer a government priority, but agreed it was basically a political decision.

- with files from Mike W. Bryant