Good morning. My name is Shirley Henderson. I'm the chairperson of the Prince Albert Grand Council Women's Commission.
We've been in existence for 20 years as the women's commission of the grand council. Our population within the grand council is well over 35,000. We have 14 members on our commission and also 12 first nations communities within the grand council. Three of those communities are fly-in communities: Hatchet Lake, Black Lake, and Fond du Lac. For many years we've been trying to get funding for a women's and children's shelter within the grand council area, but many struggles have occurred, and we have not been able to access any funding.
As for the shelter in Prince Albert, there are a lot of barriers for our women from the far north. The food is different, as is the language. A lot of our ladies only speak their first nations language when they come into the city. The culture is totally different. We do have a lot of barriers for our women from the far north. We're hoping that eventually some programs can be taken to the communities because of the vast distance the women have to travel. For those few who do come to our shelters, a lot of times they have no choice but to go back to the same situation.
The languages within the grand council are Cree, Dene, and Dakota. We were hoping that if we did establish our own shelter we could bring in all three languages, because this is such a barrier to our women.
The communities from the far north are very poor communities. The cost of living is very high. A lot of times, the first nations of a community can't even afford a plane ticket to send an individual out of that community into a shelter--for instance, in Prince Albert. The other shelter they have is in La Ronge. I'm hoping that eventually programs and shelters can be established for some of our communities, because for our ladies it is definitely home-based for them.