A Regina after school program is at a dead end after being cut off from funding in September.
“All Nations Healin’ Thru Artz” was established in Regina 10 years ago and teaches youth between the ages of 13 and 22 years old Indigenous and Metis arts and culture.
"(They) learn valuable skills that they can take into their community and to their families and just you know make a little bit of a difference in their lives," said Monica Fogel, executive director of All Nations Healin’ Thru Artz.
The program would hold sessions four days a week and taught kids various skills like how to make moccasins, creative writing, introduction to Cree, as well as music and dancing. The programs also held employment workshops for youth and helped with writing resumes and interviews.
"Now I know how to write a resume,” said Avery Hunt, a former student. “I know how to conduct myself during a professional interview which is really helpful. It's landed me a couple jobs so that's nice."
All Nations Healin’ Thru Artz used to be funded through Aboriginal Friendship Centres of Saskatchewan, which received its funding from the federal government. The government has since changed the allocation process and the Aboriginal Friendship Centers of Saskatchewan only receives money for its organization and can’t fund other programs.
All Nations Healin’ Thru Artz applied for funding through the federal government but was denied.
"The last thing that this community needs right now, in my personal opinion, is not closing down a program where you know it's going to limit youth," said Fogel.
The federal government responded to this case with a statement.
“In May 2017, The Urban Program for Indigenous Peoples (UPIP) launched a competitive process for funding proposals under the Organizational Capacity and Programs and Services streams. There was significant interest in the Organizational Capacity stream and the Programs and Services stream, with more than 500 applications being received for both funding streams” said a spokesperson for Indigenous Services Canada. “To ensure that all proposals in this competitive process were reviewed and assessed in a fair and equitable manner, a National Review Committee was established. All applications were reviewed and were ranked based on the strength of the project proposal and rated against assessment criteria under the new program. Unfortunately, in the case of All Nations Healin' Thru Artz, the organization like many others was unsuccessful during the proposal assessment process.”
Indigenous Services Canada did provide All Nations Healin’ Thru Artz with funding that lasted the program until September.
“Organizations like All Nations Healin Thu Artz, that received Urban Partnerships funding under the Urban Aboriginal Strategy in 2016-2017 but were unsuccessful in accessing funding under Urban Programming for Indigenous Peoples were provided with a one-time transition funding allocation in 2017-2018,” the statement added. “This measure was put in place to help minimize the impact on needed services for urban Indigenous peoples while they sought other sources of funding and adjusted to the funding requirements of the new program.”
