Committee gets update on reconciliation work
By Tim Kalinowski on March 20, 2021.
LETHBRIDGE HERALDtkalinowski@lethbridgeherald.com The Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee of city council received an update from the Reconciliation Lethbridge Advisory Committee (RLAC) during Thursday’s meeting which outlined the group’s plans to work in various realms to provide greater awareness of Indigenous perspectives, and to provide greater opportunities for Indigenous people within the community.Presenters Perry Stein, Pamela Beebe and Patrick Wilson spoke about several projects RLAC has in the works.
Among the initiatives were plans to hire six Indigenous youths through the Indigenous Student Employment program to work on plans for implementing the local recommendations for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls Report, including an important community education outreach piece.
The group will also work on various “decolonization” awareness in the public space, and will work on providing public art and other public expressions which reflect lived Indigenous experience and histories more truly reflective of local Indigenous peoples.
Other items of interest which came out of the RLAC presentation to the Cultural and Social Standing Policy Committee include plans, which have not yet been finalized, to bring the Alberta Treaty Hockey Provincials to Lethbridge for the first time and installation of the new flagpoles designed by Lethbridge College students outside of city hall which will recognize Lethbridge’s Indigenous heritage, and ongoing work on monuments to Residential school survivors and a local memorial in coordination with Sisters in Spirit to remember missing and murdered Indigenous women, Girls and two-spirited people. Follow @TimKalHerald on Twitter 4
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