Ukrainian association bestowed honour
Group surprised to be named one of five recipients of Minister's Culture and Heritage Circle award
Simon Whitehouse
Northern News Services
Wednesday, October 14, 2015
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A Yellowknife-based association was surprised and delighted to receive one of five cultural awards from the GNWT last week.
The Yellowknife Ukrainian Association took home the group award at the fifth annual Minister's Culture and Heritage Circle held at the legislative assembly on Monday.
The Department of Education, Culture and Employment has been handing out the awards every year since 2011 to recognize special people and groups throughout the territory who have done work surrounding the preservation of language or creating community around culture and the arts. Last Monday, recipients were given a plaque and a gift of flowers. The Ukrainian association was recognized for its ongoing legacy of promoting that ethnic group's culture through dance, scholarships and public events since 1985.
"It was quite the honour to be recognized and we were surprised but after 30 years we have always tried to make the association a social thing for people" said Donna Marie Ouellette, dance instructor with the Aurora Ukrainian Dancers.
About 40 people attended the event, which was highlighted with an introductory prayer and drumming by the Yellowknives Dene Drummers and addresses by David Stewart, deputy minister of the education department and Rita Mueller, assistant deputy minister of the Department of Education and Culture and Employment.
While the event was promoted in a Friday press release indicating that Minister Jackson Lafferty would honour the recipients, he was not present due to other commitments in his community of Behchoko.
Ouellette said there are about 12 main members in the group which does the fundraising and organizing for special events throughout the year, especially Malanka, the Ukrainian new year, which is set to take place on Jan. 23 at Sir John Franklin School.
Both Oulette and Trish Graham, president of the association, said while it remains the core body to promote Ukrainian heritage, it has evolved into a broader organization which has members from many cultural origins. Closely aligned with the association are the Aurora Ukrainian Dancers, which consists of 40 dancers and is more of the "vehicle" which expresses Ukrainian culture, they said.
A youth award went out to the 2015 Pan Am and Parapan Am Games NWT Youth Ambassadors, who attended the games in Toronto over 18 days in July.
During that period, volunteers who included Stacie Bengts of Yellowknife, as well as other youth members from across the Northwest Territories, demonstrated 30 to 40 Inuit and Dene games to visitors at the aboriginal pavillion.
"I don't think it has quite sunk in yet," Bengts said laughing when asked how she feels about receiving the award.
"I am a pretty modest person but I would like to take it as the ambassador program succeeded. I am just one tiny little person in this whole program that people have put a lot of time and effort into."
Bengts said the program has been a very positive aspect in her life because of the ability to connect with other youth from different aboriginal cultures who all want to volunteer and be better people through community engagement.
Other figures throughout the territory were recognized as well including Berna Beaulieu, individual award, Behchoko; elder award, Jeanna Graham, Hay River Reserve; and Vivian Edgi-Manuel, minister's choice award, Fort Good Hope.
