Members of SOGO Active launch the program in Ottawa.
For many aboriginal youth, it might seem like a far-off dream: running through crowds of cheering people, raising a piece of history high for Canada and the world to see.
But the Olympic torch is now within their grasp.
As part of Sogo Active, a program that encourages youth to live active lifestyles, Coca-Cola Canada and ParticipACTION will award 20 torchbearer spots to Ottawa youth between now and June for the Vancouver Olympic s .
While the program is open to all youth aged 13 to 19 across Canada, the Odawa Native Friendship Centre is Ottawa’s host organization. That will put aboriginal youth front and centre.
Being a part of the Olympic torch relay could be a much-needed self-esteem boost for aboriginal youth, says Odawa co-ordinator Beverley Sunday.
“It’s a symbol. We all know that symbols are a great thing that inspire us,” she says. “Having youth be united across Canada, carrying a torch and being inspired, that’s huge. It could take a youth a long way.”
For Tony Tulugak, carrying the Olympic flame would be an honour. But the Inuit youth says it would be about more than just personal pride.
“To do that with my background and showing that Inuit people can do stuff, too, including youth, would just be so amazing,” says Tulugak.
“Anyone can do anything as long as they work hard on it. They’ll probably see a person, a youth, and they’ll probably be thinking in their mind that they can do it and get more active, too.”
As the healthy living co-ordinator at Odawa, Sunday says she has seen a real change in Tulugak in the year and a half since he moved to Ottawa from the North.
“When I first met him, he wouldn’t come to school,” she explains. “Then I started training with him. He started focusing on school. He started coming to the weight room. Now he’s in the First Nations Get Fit Challenge. The kid has just turned himself way around.”
Sunday knows how hard being an aboriginal youth can sometimes be. She grew up on the Whitefish (Goodfish) Lake First Nation in Alberta. At 18, she was a single mother.
“I’ve lived it. I’ve seen the struggles,” says Sunday. “Every time when I would call back home when I was traveling or working, somebody died here, there was a suicide here, this rape happened, drunken driving. Every time I would call home these are the messages I would get, and it would frustrate me. It really motivated me.”
After leaving the reserve to travel and get an education, Sunday decided to become a Gen7 messenger, an athlete role model for aboriginal youth with Motivate Canada. She’ll also be opening the first aboriginal fitness centre in Ottawa this August – HAWK Wellness Studio and Personal Training.
Sunday firmly believes health is the key to break the cycle many aboriginal youth become trapped in.
That’s why she says Sogo Active is such a great opportunity.
At the first Ottawa meeting in early February, Sunday says the youth were already talking about combining culture and fitness by attending a powwow in Albuquerque, New Mexico, kayaking and going out to learn traditional practices on the land.
With both aboriginal and non-aboriginal youth taking part, Sunday Says Sogo Active could also become a vehicle for creating cultural understanding.
However, not everyone agrees aboriginal youth should be a part of the torch relay.
No2010.com is a website operated by indigenous groups protesting the Vancouver Olympics. Its slogan, No 2010 Olympics on Stolen Native Land, refers to the fact most of British Columbia is unceded aboriginal territory.
The group is also concerned about the Olympics’ environmental impact, cost and an increase in human trafficking.
Gord Hill, a member of the Olympic Resistance Network from Kwakwaka’wakw Nation in British Columbia, says having aboriginal torchbearers could conceal larger issues, such as high rates of homelessness among First Nations in Vancouver.
“Involving indigenous youth in the Olympic torch relay is a way for the Olympic industry, government and corporations to portray themselves as non-racist, ‘benevolent’ organizations, just trying to do their part to uplift Native youth,” Hill wrote in an e-mail.
“It promotes the illusion that Canada is a land of equality and that it has harmonious relations with indigenous peoples.”
While she understands and respects Hill’s views, Sunday believes the benefits for youth far outweigh the possible problems.
“A lot of times the youth don’t even think about that. They’re only thinking about how they can survive, especially when most of their parents are dysfunctional. They’re thinking, ‘how am I going to eat?’ If they have that little hope or inspiration in being a torchbearer in unity across Canada, well, that’s what I’m going to focus on.”