A time to celebrate and share culture

The North Bay Indian Friendship Centre (NBIFC) celebrated Aboriginal Day Thursday with an open house, BBQ and traditional drum ceremony.

Executive Director, Roland Peltier, says it is important for everyone to understand the culture and to build partnerships and educate people about the Aboriginal way of life.

“We celebrate our culture on a daily basis, we practise our teachings on a daily basis, Aboriginal Day we want to share what we have, and we want to share our culture with the mainstream culture.”

“Definitely creating a cultural awareness to external agencies to the people who provide services for aboriginal people out there is very important,” he says.

“That they know how to treat our people and why we are the way we are. Being aboriginal is different it’s almost like the Francophone community where they classify themselves as being very diverse in their own way, we are the same way and we’ve been like that ever since before even 1492 and we will always be that way and we are getting stronger. We’re actually in the healing process now we’re actually going to be going back to our old ways.”

Peltier adds the one lesson he would like people to take away from the day is cultural awareness and sensitivity in order to help society find common ground in order for all communities to get along.
“Be sensitive, we are non confrontational people we accept things the way they are and for people to understand that,” he states.

“The mainstream culture can actually walk all over us and we’ll take it, but we’ll only take it so far. But I think what needs to happen is, we help our own people advocate for themselves and we also advocate for them here at the Friendship Centre in many aspects.”

Peltier admits that in order to find the desired common ground everyone has to buy in to the process.

“That’s our ultimate goal at the present time right now we want to bridge a gap between the agencies such as the policing services and the Aboriginal community,” he explains.

“The Police Chief of North Bay is very receptive to that, but it’s a two way street. We want to be able to learn the police culture as well as share our culture why we are the way we are and why we do the things we do.”