Calendar celebrates Aboriginal success stories
- Jamin Mike and Morgan Esperance | December 23, 2015
Each year the Regina Aboriginal Professionals Association (RAPA) celebrates youth success by featuring various youth and professionals in the 2016 A Proud Generation calendar and also distributing $500 bursaries to each recipient. On Saturday December 12th, 14 youth from across Saskatchewan had been chosen to receive the magnificent award at the First Nations University of Canada. Chosen candidates are dedicated to leadership such as academics, career, arts, sports, and community and cultural.
Winona Pratt, from the Cote First Nation, is one of the many recipients and is also the 2015 Miss First Nations University of Canada. She had much to say about her achievement.
“I had my doubts about getting into this calendar because it’s such a huge honour.”
Pratt is enlightened that she has role models to look up to and strives to become a role-model herself. “I just hope to be more of an influence for the younger generations, more of an inspirer and have people look up to me just like I looked up to Rebecca.” Pratt is 21 years old and studies criminal justice at the University of Regina.
Over $60,000 has been invested and distributed to over 100 youth in the past eleven years. The awards were first introduced in 2004 and each year’s profit is reinvested into making these awards happen year after year.
Adrianna Simon of the Carry the Kettle First Nation is also featured in the calendar. “The calendar, to me, is basically letting you know all that first nations can do in a positive way,” said Adrianna, a student at the U of R.
Brad Bellegarde, the communication lead for RAPA, discussed the board’s pleasure in seeing the youth come forth to be recognised and wanting to become leaders of their communities. “I’m pleased to say that this year we actually had a record number of applications. We had over 40 applications and it’s growing,” said Bellegarde. He and the RAPA board had put numerous hours in preparation to make this calendar and event possible. Bellegarde acknowledged that if there were 40 months in a year then all forty applicants could have been chosen.
“It’s a humbling experience to be able to go to through every applicants, every applicant is a success story, regardless if they were chosen or not,” says Bellegarde. He encourages people to buy a copy of the calendar for $20. All the initiatives that a proud generation does hand out, and same with RAPA, gets funded right back into the communities. Rapa is community based and is a non-profit organization. Each step toward this award was put in mind with the celebration of Aboriginal success particularly to youth.
Calendars can be purchased from rapanetwork@gmail.com.