Stsmémelt re Esk’et: Celebrating Children, Families, and Culture

Añadido: 2026-05-09

[00:00:20]At this moment in time, there's change happening.

[00:00:24]What I saw today was just that pride of being sketch.

[00:00:32]You want to learn the culture. You want to learn the language. You want to learn traditional values and who your family members are.

[00:00:40]This is where that happens.

[00:00:46]>> We have community members out there.

[00:00:48]Some never knew they were escum.

[00:00:54]We've invited them all back here so we can welcome them home and let them know this is their roots, where they're from.

[00:01:06]It's one thing to be an ESCT member, but it's a whole another thing to be in community and be part of the families, the friendships.

[00:01:22]>> Belonging is a really big part of our spirituality and our laws that every child needs to belong somewhere.

[00:01:35]It's really good that we can bring them home >> and let them know this is where your great greatgrandparents were and this is where you belong.

[00:01:59]Coming in with the cici sticks and letting our children lead us off with a prayer to start the whole the whole day I think was really positive note.

[00:02:12]We did the entry at the end of coming in. I got to lead the group of our next generation into the center circle.

[00:02:37]to be a part of that was pretty powerful.

[00:02:44]>> We've been working as a nation since 2007 to get our kids home because we had a lot of children in care.

[00:02:53]We want to ensure with this program that we're developing that they're going to be safe and they're going to be protected.

[00:03:02]needs to be solidly founded on our own laws and our own traditions, culture and language.

[00:03:16]When you want to learn your language, those are your blood, your ancestors.

[00:03:23]And uh the ancestors that we talk about, they're they're on the walls. Those are our elders that gave us hope because they held on to their language, their culture, their traditions, and their ceremonies. And that's what we're doing today.

[00:03:41]We're welcoming you back through ceremony, through celebration.

[00:03:49]We wanted to give gifts to the children that are coming home and their caregivers because we want let the caregivers know we acknowledge all the work they've done to help our children.

[00:04:02]It's our way of saying we care for you.

[00:04:05]We want the best for you.

[00:04:07]>> We live in merit and uh it's important for them to come see their other side of their family. in Borit >> and these are children.

[00:04:21]>> I feel so happy that they have this opportunity to come into community for the girls to be to be brought up and stood up in front of their community and be welcomed in and be gifted.

[00:04:36]It's caring, you know.

[00:04:45]It was good to see Laal being played in a positive way in a really good celebration having the different people participate.

[00:05:03]>> Sket is known as people of the white earth. The story behind that is we were never here way back in the day. We were always at the river.

[00:05:17]And when you see the river, you see all the white earth that's there.

[00:05:24]That's where we lived.

[00:05:29]See all of these white basket grasses?

[00:05:32]They're all what they put on these pith houses. They weave them together. They have a wooden frame and then they put that on top and then they put the dirt over it.

[00:05:50]>> One of our elders, Frankie, he's been a traditional dancer for years.

[00:06:00]But watching Frankie dance with one of his grandchildren. That grandchild was so excited to come out, mimic his moves, and learning at such a young age is probably one of my favorite things to see.

[00:06:16]To see it in the eyes of the children that are dancing that they're very proud of who they are, participate in something like that. It's just amazing for them.

[00:06:37]We need those leaders in our community and we need to start when they're little.

[00:06:45]See them proud to be from here.

[00:06:51]Was pretty emotional.

[00:06:55]I really get a sense that everyone's happy with the way things are going right now.