The IFTA team has been in action in the First Nation community of Kashechewan. Our operations manager Milt Ottey, development officer Ackisha Williams and basketball coach John Taylor worked last week as part of a long term effort to train and assist local youth to organize their own sports programs and to instigate some positive and fun activities for younger children in the area.

Milt and Ackisha had previously visited the community in June earlier this year and delivered some fun programming and training with the Agility Challenge but during the trip they took time to talk with the local teenagers to find out how they could help create a sustainable project that could continue to grow with the teenagers delivering it themselves. Together they made a plan and when the locals expressed interest to learn more about Basketball, Milt enlisted the help of John Taylor of The Brampton Minor Basketball Association who is a fully trained basketball coach

Milt had this to say about the project “After our first visit in June, it was clear to me that many of the young adults and school age students were lacking many of the basic sports skills that we take for granted in Southern Ontario. The older students told us that they would like to know more about Basketball & Volleyball, so for our next visit I enlisted the help of John Taylor. During the day we worked in the gym at St. Andrews school with sessions for both Elementary and High School aged kids John Taylor took over at 4:30 to 6:00pm with the after school program which  included basic basketball skills such as dribbling, shooting the rules and game discipline for the 10 to 14 year olds. The real fun started at 9:00pm to midnight for the older students, ranging from 15 to 23 years of age. John put them through warm up how to play defense and attack and at the end of the day all participants were enjoying the discipline and energy of the sessions. It was truly wonderful to see the positive effect that these simple sports have in a young person’s life. It is my hope to be able to introduce the students of Kashechewan the joy of Volleyball on the next visit.

The project was organized by Joan Barker (Aboriginal Mental Health Consultant) at the request of Band & the Health Services Board to manage a two year federally funded demonstration project geared towards providing youth ages 14\15 to 25 with coping skills and alternatives to self harm when faced with both normal growing pains and the very significant issues of life in a remote, aboriginal community.