Cooking with Kokum

Bringing students back to school is the focus of a new program being developed by Thunder Bay’s Neighbourhood Capacity Building Project.
“We’re trying to develop a program where the kids actually do stuff hands-on,” said Ryan Gustafson, youth outreach worker at Ecole Gron Morgan. “One of the projects we are looking at right now is making hand drums right from scratch.”
Gustafson said the students will actually make the drums, sand them down and attach the hide.
“There is a little teaching that goes with the strapping of the hide,” Gustafson said. “It’s to bond them to their hand drums.”
Gustafson spoke about the new program during a break in a March 30 Anishnawbe Mushkiki information session for the youth outreach workers on Healthy Eating Active Living at the Travelodge Inn.
Gustafson and some of the other youth outreach workers recently switched to different schools; Gustafson switched from Sherbrooke Public School to Ecole Gron Morgan while Nathaniel Moses switched from Ecole Gron Morgan to Our Lady of Charity School.
“It’s been about a month now,” Moses said. “It’s fun. It’s no different, we’re all human beings. We’re all trying to create the good things for all kids.”
Moses said Our Lady of Charity School has a program he had never seen before.
“We have a program called Cooking with Kokum,” Moses said. “An Elder comes in to teach our younger ones how to make mixed bits, bannock and stuff like that.”
Sarah Wright, youth outreach worker at Ogden Street Public School, provides cultural teachings twice a week to students.
“We have a recreation program on Mondays, cooking with kids program on Wednesdays and field trip days on Fridays,” Wright said.
While the youth outreach workers are in school all day, five days a week, Wright said the Neighbourhood Capacity Building Program after-school program runs for about two-and-a-half hours after school each day of the school week.
“At Ogden, we probably get about 15-20 (students) a day,” Wright said.
“Some schools get up to 25 kids a day, but every school is different and every day is different.”