Thank you for having me.
My name is Cody Kenny and I work for Aboriginal Sport BC. I represent an organization called BCAAFC, which is the BC Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres. I've been working as the regional coordinator for the Vancouver coastal region for over a year now. I develop sport in our region for aboriginal youth, as well as for adults, through coaching clinics.
Before that I was working as aboriginal cultural programmer for the Carnegie Community Centre in the Downtown Eastside, which is a very highly populated aboriginal area and a very highly vulnerable area, so I can speak on behalf of that vulnerable section of Vancouver.
Moving into my new role, I got to experience a lot of things first-hand in terms of sport and where we're at in British Columbia, and I think we do need a lot of work.
Currently, the thing we do well is hosting large tournaments. In British Columbia there's a lot of aboriginal youth soccer tournaments in the spring and summer. Once they end, teens kind of end and there's no continuation, so I do really believe we need established commissioners and established leagues. We need to support through funding to bring our players to higher levels of competition.
One thing we did in the summer was host aboriginal soccer championships, and the winning team of these championships did go on to represent Team BC at the North American Indigenous Games. It was on me to put together U15 and U17 teams for men and for women. We lost, but forming these teams formed friendships and identity. It's sad that this only happens once every two years, that we have this tournament only once every two years.
Another thing we do really well is the All Native Basketball Tournament in Prince Rupert. Teams practice all year long, then they go up once a year to play in an all-native tournament, but once it's over, it's done.
What I truly believe is that we need continuation of programs like these. We need funding to bring our athletes to the next level, and supports so they stay together.
That's the bulk of it. Are there any questions?