Two St. Albert and Alexander women have won a provincial award for their efforts to advance culture, education, and medicine in their communities.
Melissa Nollski of St. Albert and Joanna Rose Campiou of Alexander First Nation received Esquao Awards on May 3. They were amongst the roughly 600 guests and 18 winners from across Alberta that gathered at the Edmonton Expo Centre that day for the awards ceremony.
The Esquao Awards aim to highlight the achievements and contributions Indigenous women make toward the building of Alberta, said Josie Nepinak, president of Esquao, the Institute for the Advancement of Aboriginal Women.
“There are strong Indigenous women who continue to be the lifeblood of our communities,” she said, and this recognition helps create a better environment and Alberta for them.
Many St. Albert and Alexander women have won Esquao Awards in the award’s 28-year history, including residential school survivor Hazel McKennitt (2009), pow-wow dancer Sage Arcand-Roan (2013), and St. Albert National Aboriginal Day celebration founder Gwen Crouse (2015).
Educator
Recognized in the Education category, Nollski is a member of the Michel First Nation and has helped educate Indigenous youths in the Edmonton region through the Aboriginal Head Start program for about 25 years. The program, established in 1995 and backed by the federal and provincial governments, aims to give culturally appropriate preschool education to Indigenous youths across Canada.
Nollski said she knew of her First Nations heritage growing up, but never really embraced it as a child.
“You didn’t identify too openly about your culture because there was such a negative stigma about being Indigenous,” she explained.
Nollski said she earned her early childhood education degree at what is now MacEwan University and applied to be a substitute teacher with Aboriginal Head Start at the suggestion of her aunt. When she went in for her job interview, she ended up hired as a full-time teacher. In 2003, she became executive director of the program in Edmonton, and now tours the nation as a member of the National Aboriginal Head Start Council.
Aboriginal Head Start is exclusively for First Nation, Metis, and Inuit youths aged three to five and emphasizes Indigenous culture, Nollski said. Students learn the basics of Cree and land-based teachings, and interact with drummers, dancers, and other cultural experts, all while getting up to speed for Kindergarten.
“The whole thing is making sure they grow up to be proud Indigenous people,” she said.
Healer
Rose Campiou was recognized in the Culture category for her work as a mother, grandmother, nurse, cultural arts instructor, knowledge keeper, and entrepreneur in Alexander.
A licensed practical nurse, Rose Campiou said she was specifically nominated for her years of work to combine traditional First Nations medicines and ceremonies with Western medical techniques.
“I worked with traditional medicines, and I wanted to help my people,” she said.
Rose Campiou said she and other practitioners of traditional medicine faced stiff resistance from mainstream doctors at first, but won them over when the medicines and ceremonies they performed produced results.
“Our medicines have healed people that have had cancer, have cured AIDS, have cured people who would never walk again,” she said, including her own son.
Rose Campiou said she now works with doctors across Canada to teach them about how Indigenous ceremonies and medicines can bolster patient health. Some doctors have attended pipe and smudging ceremonies after seeing how traditional practices helped patients recover.
“They [the doctors] said, ‘Whatever you’re doing, continue it, because it’s working.’”
Visit iaaw.ca for a list of this year’s Esquao Award recipients.
