Senator Myles Venne School was the location of the final day of the conference. (Derek Cornet/larongeNOW Staff)

By Derek Cornet

Healthy Living

Healthy Families Conference comes to an end in La Ronge

Nov 8, 2019 | 5:00 PM

The Healthy Families Conference focusing on lifestyles and languages wrapped up Friday at Senator Myles Venne School.

Hosted by the Lac La Ronge Indian Band (LLRIB), it featured several special guests including Jason Chamakese, Marcia Mirasty, Kendra Weenie and Puppeteer Ken Bighetty with Chief Michael Joe and Marcel each day. The conference began Nov. 5 in Grandmother’s Bay before being held in Hall Lake, Sucker River and finally Senator Myles Venne School. According to LLRIB Director of Education Simon Bird, health and social services providers were also in attendance to speak with youth.

“It’s designed to bring some very important topics to our youth and vice versa,” he said. “A lot of our service providers don’t have the chance to come in front of youth and that’s what we want to do. We’re facilitating the youth and service providers, and we try to highlight local providers.”

There were a number of topics highlighted such as being comfortable with your body and acknowledging the changes that go through each person with the voice, growth and interest in sex as youth grow older. Alcohol and drug abuse were also discussed, along with mental health, managing stress and learning to deal with health in all aspects.

“A facilitator who I can always point to who did a good job is Marcia Mirasty,” Bird said. “She talked about womanhood and manhood, and how there were rights of passage traditionally and today those things are forgotten about.”

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Str8 Up from Saskatoon was also in attendance to speak to students about the dangers of the gang lifestyle. The organization assists gang members in escaping that lifestyle and Bird noted hopefully students can learn from the speakers they heard from and not make the same mistakes.

The puppet show was made possible by Bighetty who comes from a northern Cree band in Manitoba. Bird stated Bighetty speaks the same local Cree dialect spoken in La Ronge and served as a source of entertainment.

“They use humour to highlight we are richer than we think focusing on the language, culture and what we have around us,” he said.

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derek.cornet@jpbg.ca

Twitter: @saskjourno