The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The plight of missing and murdered aboriginal women has drawn concern across the country. Yet many Canadians are in the dark about the severity of the problem and its impact on families and communities. To shed some light, a group of youth and other volunteers are crafting moccasin tops that will be part of an awareness-raising art piece set to tour the nation. â??If you go to Facebook, every day theyâ??ll show women missing all across Canada, all across the world,â?ù says April Nickel, one of the participants. â??This is what this is all about, is that awareness so that people do know that families are affected by this.â?ù Last week Nickel, herself an aboriginal woman, was among about a dozen people gathered at the Community Youth Resource Centre to stitch bead designs onto moccasin tops, known as vamps. By mid-July, beaded vamps from across Canada will be shipped to aboriginal artist Christi Belcourt, who will create a winding path of vamps on a cloth spread over a gallery floor. Viewers will be able to walk over the cloth and along the path, provided, of course, they remove their shoes. See â??Proudâ?? on pg. Continued from pg. Belcourt wants 600-plus vamps â?? one for every aboriginal woman believed to be missing or the subject of an unsolved murder. Doreen Roman is proud to help Belcourt reach that goal. Roman spearheaded the local vamp-making campaign after reading about Belcourtâ??s effort on Facebook. â??I read what it was about and it just kind of pulled at my heartstrings,â?ù she says. â??I thought, â??I would like to do this.â?? Thereâ??s so many missing women out there (and) what an honour to recognize them this way.â?ù First Roman needed a sponsor to pay for the material and beads. USW Local 7106 stepped up to the plate. Next she needed a location for the weekly work bees. The Youth Centre, now located at the Flin Flon Aboriginal Friendship Centre, was all for it, and the sessions began in mid-May. For Roman, an aboriginal woman who had attended some of the Youth Centreâ??s cultural events earlier this year, the location was ideal. Roman, an educational assistant at Many Faces Education Centre, also brought the concept to that school and Hapnot Collegiate. High school students now meet weekly to create the vamps over lunch hour. Roman said the national tour of Belcourtâ??s art piece is to begin this September in B.C. and should reach Winnipeg next spring. While it is often said there are 600 or more missing or murdered aboriginal women in Canada, the actual number is difficult to verify. Of course one woman is too many, which is why Roman, Nickel and countless other Canadians are so eager to help in any way they can.
