The'Responsibility is Yours:

SSss

PRACTICING THEIR PADDLING are this
pair of skilled youngsters, who
participated in the East Saanich canoe
races in 1989. A program organized by

the Pa

uguachin band introduces local
native youths to such traditional
activities in an effort to combat drug or
alcohol abuse.

; £rogram presenis alternatives to alcohol

by Deborah Senger.
Special to The Review

: In the heart of Sidney, on Van-

a2 couver Island, is the scenic com-
munity of Pauquachin, a place
where 20 years ago the beaches
were filled with boats, canoes and
industrious souls fishing for their
families and livelihoods.

Today the beaches are bare and
the fishing has stopped. The peo-
ple of Pauquachin are relying on
social assistance at an increasing
Tate.

And the youth are following in
their parents footsteps, dropping
out of school at an early age and

‘@only looking forward to receiving
their first welfare cheque.

But last year the band council
and the youth decided to take
control of their own lives with the
National Drug Strategy program,
initiated by Health and Welfare
Canada. The program’s goal is to
give youth a healthy alternative to
drugs and alcohol, and it is organ-
ized and run by the youth.

y Our whole beach used to be
full of boats,” Lyle Henry said.
“Now no one goes fishing any
more, they just survive on social
assistance. Everybody likes the
easy way of outboard motors and
things like that and in the old days
people could leave their boats and
canoes on the beach — but now
they can’t.
“Our youth have nothing to do,
so that’s how they come up with
the idea of going camping.”

As part of the NDS project the
youth of Pauquachin organized
two camp-outs in their traditional
territory of Hatchpoint. Henry said
many of his people have never
seen Hatchpoint and never knew
that it was part of their traditional
territory.

“Our people roamed from
campsite to campsite, it just hap-
pened to be that we were here
when the reserves were formed.

| WRITERS

“The. camp-outs were each six
days long. We focused on alcohol
and substance abuse but we didn’t
give seminars on it — we used our
elders. The elders came in and
gave advice to our youth during
circle time,” Henry said.

An important aspect of self-
reliance was learning more about
the culture and language and to
understand traditional native med-
icines. The students were taken on
walking tours to learn more about
the herbs the elders traditionally
used for medicinal purposes.

Elder Herman Henry stressed
the importance of communication
between elders and youth but
added that many elders feel they
don’t have anything to share with
the youth.

He also stressed the importance
of their Indian language. “People
who speak our language seem to
understand more about life.”

‘People who speak

our language seem

fo undersiand more
about life’

A language component was
included in the project. Herman
Henry, who teaches language at
the band hall, taught the kids their
traditional language.

Another reason for starting the
project was the increasing rate of
alcohol abuse in the community.

“We have a fair percentage of
alcohol use and that was part of
the reason of starting the project,”
Lyle Henry said.

The band’s long range goal is to
educate the people and get them
off social assistance but for the
short term, Henry says the band
would settle for a program director
to run the community hall.

“We have a community hall that
is under used right now because
we did not allow drugs and alcohol
in the hall.”

The Pauquachin band council
went in to debt trying to fund a
program director on their own and

hopes to get funding so the kids
can spend their spare time in a
positive way.

Approximately 75 youths and
adults participated in the camp out
and Henry said the response was
so great they want to do it all over
again this year.

“We'll probably do it again on
our own this year. They want it to
continue.”

With the increase of broken

families and single parent families, —

children often suffer. “The number
of single families are getting
higher and higher — separated and
broken families, it’s a trend that
seems to be getting worse,” Henry
says.

Henry says this means the kids
need an outlet in a positive envi-
ronment to deter them from drugs
and alcohol.

Other parts of the project
included sports, track and field,
beach sports day and clam digging.

Pauquachin band council’s goal
was to encourage youth and adults
to participate in the language and
activities like bone games, Indian
language and fishing.

Elder Herman Henry’s advice to
the youth is straightforward: ““To
all the youths — listen to your
elders. A long time ago before we
would start the day we would
listen to our elders and their teach-
ings.

“Everyday of my life when I
was small, my parents would tell
us what we're supposed to do; if
we've done good they would thank
us.
“Kids should listen to their
parents and elders because in the
long run it will pay off, maybe
they won’t understand now, but
when they get older it will all
come back.”

Funding for the National Drug
Strategy program varies from

about $5,000 for individual bands -

to $10,000 for tribal councils or
more than one band.

= ~wontinued from Page BI

The launch was held at the
Esquimalt Angler’s boat ramp at
Macaulay Point and included
draining a bottle of cheap bubbly,
stuffing copies of the locally-
written poems inside, replacing the
cork and smashing a small boat

over the champagne bottle to send
it sliding down a custom built
Tamp into the ocean.

“Tf the currents are good enough
for the sewage outfall, they’re
good enough for our poetry,”
explained Jim Bigsby of Esqui-
malt, who has one of his poems in
the book.

Bigsby noted 11 of the 120
submissions in the book were
penned by Greater Victoria area
writers, giving the area more rep-

resentation than some provinces.

Writer Gerry MacIntosh, who
placed fourth in the national com-
petition, also lives in Esquimalt,
Bigsby said.

Musgrave missed the book
launch because of a poetry reading
in Powell River

“T think it was done in a won-
derful spirit,” she said.

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