Saturday’s achievement day for the Canora Multiple 4-H Club provided an opportunity for the members to illustrate their growing cultural awareness while developing their sewing skills.
“I am so proud of these girls,” said Bev Spearman, club leader. They started the year with little or no exposure to sewing and in time for the conclusion of 4-H year, they were able to illustrate the skills developed to sew ceremonial dance outfi ts.
“Two of these girls had never sewn before and now, look at the creativity that went into designing and sewing these outfi ts,” Spearman said after the girls modeled the outfi ts. She went on to praise the beauty, the use of colours and the imagination that went into each of the garments. There is no end to the praise Spearman has for the 4-H program. The motto of 4-H is “to learn to do by doing.”
These are not the skills normally offered through the traditional school system, and that observation is reinforced by the fact that home-ec classes are no longer offered in Canora.
Throughout history, this type of skill development has been passed along from one generation to the next, but as the consumer mentality grows, some very basic homemaking skills such as
sewing and cooking are being lost.
Achievement day provides opportunity to demonstrate cultural awareness through sewing project This year, the Canora 4-H program provided a wonderful example of the benefits of passing
along skill development through an intergenerational atmosphere and it was a very positive exercise for everyone involved, Spearman said.
With the financial support offered through a grant from the Painted Hand Casino, the members had the opportunity to challenge themselves with more elaborate projects.
Spearman wanted the sewing project students to assume ownership of the direction that the classes would take. It was the students’ decision to challenge themselves by taking on a
project that was reflective of their First Nations’ culture – creating ceremonial dance outfits. That opened the door to so many possibilities and the club soon found the support of a couple of First Nations’ elders. Soon the 4-H leaders had the support of women like Agnes Thomas, who drove all the way from Humboldt just to share her knowledge of how to incorporate various symbols and colours into the sewing projects.
Another elder who became an intricate part of the sewing project was Victoria Blackbird. While the young 4-H members learned much abou their culture, Spearman said she also
learned a lot and will be able to offer that knowledge to future 4-H members.
This method of engaging the young 4-H members also goes hand in hand with the basics being taught in the sewing project as a whole, Spearman said. Through the 4-H program, there
is teaching material available for clothing design and the popularity of clothing design is skyrocketing across the province.
Sewing these ceremonial dance outfits has given the girls a sense of accomplishment and that builds self confidence and pride, Spearman said.
An example to illustrate the pride the girls had in their sewing projects, after the outfi ts were modeled, the girls were told they could change back to their street clothes for the lunch which followedthe formal program.
The girls insisted that they wanted to wear their outfits for the remainder of the program. There is always more that can be added to ceremonial outfi ts and Spearman said she expects the girls to be returning to 4-H to continue the creative process.
Reporting on the cooking projects, Flo Brown said she had a wonderful time being the leader. In addition to teaching some cooking basics, she had her members learn about preparing food for people with special needs, such as lactose-free diets or diabetic diets.
“I had fun teaching them.” The grant from Painted Hand was a great asset to the sewing projects, but it also enabled the club to purchase a variety of ingredients and cooking utensils for the cooking
projects.
While the achievement day was the official windup event for the year, the members will be getting together on June 30 for a windup party.
