Where North meets south
Cora Rabisca to share culture during Northern Youth Abroad
Kassina Ryder
Northern News Services
Monday, March 30, 2015
RADILIH KOE’/FORT GOOD HOPE
Cora Rabisca has big plans the summer. The Grade 12 student at Chief T'Selehye School will be travelling with Northern Youth Abroad (NYA), a charitable organization that enables Northwest Territories and Nunavut youth to get hands-on work experience and skills training in cities around the world.
Cora Rabisca, left, is a Grade 12 student at Chief T’Selehye School in Fort Good Hope taking part in the international phase of the Northern Youth Abroad program this summer. She is pictured here with fellow Junior Canadian Rangers Angeline Amagoalik and Sonny Gully during a cultural day tour to Banff, Alta., on Feb. 25. - photo courtesy of Capt. Stephen Watton |
While she's on this year's trip, she said she wants to share as much about her culture as she can.
"I can teach them my language because I'm Dene so I can teach them Slavey," she said. "I can teach them how to make a teepee."
While the final destination for this year's international Northern Youth Abroad (NYA) trip hasn't yet been announced, Rabisca said she'll be ready no matter where the journey takes her. She has already begun compiling the information she wants to share.
"I want to show them my language and how to make bannock and how we hunt and that we live along the treeline," she said.
Rabisca said she knows how interested people are in the day-to-day lives of Northerners, so she plans to speak about how people in Fort Good Hope travel by winter road and about how food must be transported into the community from elsewhere.
Rabisca first realized how curious people are about the North during the Canadian phase of NYA, which she participated in 2013.
Her host family took her on a trip to Niagara Falls where she met people from Paris, France.
"They kept asking, 'Is it cold? Are there polar bears?'" she said. "They took a picture with us. We felt like celebrities for a while."
In addition to sharing information about her culture and community, Rabisca said she's hoping to learn about other cultures as well.
"I'm excited to travel and to meet new people and learn different cultures," she said. "I want to try different foods and learn about traditional ways."
Though she said she's nervous to travel so far from home, Rabisca said she knows it's a great opportunity.
Being a member of the Junior Canadian Rangers helped her gain the confidence she'll need for the trip, she added. The teen has been a Junior Ranger for the past four years. She also pointed to the fact NYA staff are there to provide help and host families are there to make sure student participants feel at home.
Although NYA organizers do offer help for students who are away from their families, Rabisca said her Niagara trip also helped her be more self-reliant.
"It helped me be more independent," she said. Because of that experience, she said she knows she will be able to handle the challenges she will face during the international phase.
"I'm willing to take the chance to go," she said
When she's not plotting which cultural information she will share, Rabisca said she's been busy finishing the assignments required to participate in NYA, such as writing a small biography about herself.
"Where I'm from, there are 800 people in my community," she said. "I'm still young and I want to explore the world before I get older. This is a once in a lifetime thing. I'm excited to see the world."
She said she would encourage other Northern youth to sign up.
"It's a really good experience," she said.
"At first it can be lonely because you're going to be with different people, but it's well worth it."
