Young people in Saskatchewan’s north are engaging with their communities thanks to the recent development of the Pathfinder program.
The New North Saskatchewan Association of Northern Communities program was something the organization had been looking into for some time, said CEO Matt Heley, but it was due to financial support from the Red Cross for COVID-19 programming that made it possible to move the program forward.
By September 2020, six local young people were hired across northern communities to engage in a research and volunteer capacity within their communities and gain some valuable work experience themselves.
Making those connections between community residents, especially young people, and the local government has been the main goal for 25-year-old Kaleigh Aramenko in Île-à-la-Crosse. Not having ways to support young people, especially during COVID-19, would be a failure on their part, she said.
“Our main goal was to go into our communities and look at the gaps in programming, and see what else is needed and try to find the youth voice and do our best to represent them because they are what matter. They are the future.”
Saskatchewan’s northern youth want more for themselves, including more sports and recreation opportunities and cultural programming in their communities, Aramenko said. They are resilient but they carry a lot with them. Aramenko herself said she and many of the other pathfinders in different communities share similar stories of trauma, violence, and addiction. If young people aren’t going to take on these issues head-on, then who else is going to, she said.
“There’s so much lacking with mental health up north. There are no counsellors or anything like that. There’s no one for us to reach out to and that’s been one of the biggest things that we’ve seen.”
Heaven Smith is taking the position as a call to action to help her community of Pinehouse.
“This job really encouraged me to push to volunteer in my own community, connect with the people and to check on the youth, the adults, the mental health of everybody.”
Pinehouse is slowly coming out of a total lockdown after they had their first outbreak on Dec. 20. The community response was great to see, she said, as people banded together to take care of members of the community.
As part of the Pinehouse response team, Smith helped post on social media and make videos to share information digitally and on local radio as well as prepare and drop off supplies for those in isolation, Smith said.
The Pathfinder program, especially fellow pathfinders in other communities, has inspired Smith to get involved and engaged with her community, she said.
“I have people to report to, now I have other girls who are supporting me and sharing advice about what they did with their communities. So that’s what the Pathfinder program did for me and made me a lot more confident in my town leadership and what they’re doing.”
Heley has seen the program’s success so far, he said, and they will be finding ways to quantify it in the coming months as the program draws to a close. The information collected is going to be beneficial for New North and northern communities in the future and they would like to see that continue.
“We’re hearing a lot more about how youth coping with the pandemic and some really unique perspectives that we wouldn’t have thought of. That’s going to be really useful in informing some other projects that we do.”
Red Cross funding is shortly going to run out, Heley said, but they are hoping the program will gain funding traction elsewhere so they continue on with providing this service position to other local young people.