By Josh Finn
For the next few weeks, about 125 children and their families, brought to Ottawa from Kashechewan, will call several downtown hotels their home.
Among them is 12-year-old Claudius Koosees who is billetted at the Cartier Place Suite Hotel on Cooper Street. Others are staying across the street at the Extended Stay Deluxe (formerly the Aristocrat) and the Minto Suite Hotel on Lyon Street.
The Koosees’ are part of a contingent of about 250 residents from the Northern Ontario Cree community who were brought to Ottawa after E.coli bacteria was found in the reserve’s water supply.
While Claudius says Ottawa is “great,” adjusting to life in a big city will be a challenge for him and many other children, who have rarely, if ever, been off their isolated reserve. Kashechewan is a community of less than 2,000 and is not even accessible by road most of the year.
“This is a very big change for them, coming from a remote community to such a big city like Ottawa. There’s so many opportunities for them here,” says Sheila Burrows, who has been an elementary school teacher in Kashechewan for three years.
Burrows says it is important to keep the children busy while they are in Ottawa. She says trips being planned to museums and other sights around the city will be a great experience for them.
Kashechewan children will also attend classes while in Ottawa.
Gary Lafontaine, executive director of the Odawa Native Friendship Centre, says a makeshift school will be set up at the centre. The Alternate Aboriginal High School is also run out of the centre and Lafontaine says some students may attend classes there.
Lafontaine says an effort is also underway to “street proof” the kids. For example, Lafontaine says the children need to be taught the dangers of traffic.
Travis Wynne, 13, and his friends aren’t too concerned with traffic. Before a daily dinner for all Kashechewan evacuees at the Odawa Centre, Travis and a group of other children were running across the street in front of the centre, oblivious to cars driving by.
Children such as Travis are finding everyday life in the big city to be very exciting. Travis’ friends chime about the things they like most about Ottawa – their hotel, houses, buildings– things that are a daily fact of life for Ottawa children.
“The kids were looking at . . . the Queensway and they thought a race was going on a speedway . . . they’ve never seen rush hour traffic,” Lafontaine says.
For Travis, being in Ottawa means a chance to “run around” and “play with friends.”
But for many Kashechewan parents and health officials, there is a much more important reason children like Travis are here in Ottawa.
Like many evacuees, Claudius’s mother, Caroline, says the main concern for her children is medical assistance. She says Claudius has eczema which she blames on contaminated water.
Allison Fisher, executive director of the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health, says acute cases are being dealt with first. All evacuees will undergo a medical assessment at the Wabano Centre over the next few weeks. These assessments are critical because many of the children in Kashechewan are constantly ill, Fisher says.
“Parents [were] fearful for their children’s lives . . . They have told us that [coming to Ottawa] was an act of desperation, to get their children out, because they thought their children would die,” says Fisher.
She says being in Ottawa will give Travis and Claudius, and many others, the chance to see a doctor and to know that after all these years of being silent, that they finally have a voice.
“We are dealing with Third World conditions which means we are dealing with Third World health conditions . . . There are people here who have never seen a doctor.”