Aboriginal Head Start program staff throws parade for graduating students

Students from the Grande Prairie Friendship Centre’s Aboriginal Head Start program received the graduation they have been waiting for on Friday.

With the program, a pre-school for kids aged 3-5 that learn about school readiness and the importance of the Indigenous culture, having to cancel in-person classes because of COVID-19, students have been stuck learning from home since March.

When classes got cancelled, faculty and staff got together and discussed plans for their graduation ceremony.

Normally, the school would have a graduation ceremony where the students would perform a traditional dance in traditional regalia that their parents had hand-made for them. Parents would also make the child their own drum to perform traditional songs and the graduation ceremony would be a display of what the students have learned over the last two years.

Since at the time it was very unlikely that a big ceremony would be allowed to happen, the staff and faculty got together and planned a graduation parade for the students.

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“We wanted to honour the families since we couldn’t do our normal year-end celebration,” said Joleen Bateman the Program Coordinator for Aboriginal Head Start.

To try to make the ceremony as normal as possible the school followed their normal graduation plans.

Parents of the children all hand-made a traditional regalia outfit as well as their own drum for their teachers to see as they would drive by to celebrate the student’s graduation.

The regalia is a traditional outfit that is worn at major Indigenous events such as powwows or other traditional dances. Each regalia is unique to each dancer, their culture and even their family.

With the traditional outfits made, members of the school drove past every graduate’s house in the city and threw candy out the window, saw the regalia outfits and presented the students with special gifts.

There were over 20 graduates in the class.

The teachers also put a picture of each student up in the front entrance of the Friendship Centre with notes of congratulations.

Dallal Olver had two of her children in the program, and she says it was great to see her kids get the chance to have a graduation ceremony.

“It feels exciting and joyful and it also feels like a right of passage. It feels like we are marking that and celebrating it. We were working and making these regalia for three months and for it all to come together and to (see) them to wear it and for them to learn the dance, it’s pretty powerful.”

Olver notes the regalia was not a quick and easy task. She had never sewn before and she had to make two regalia for her children, Keegan and Kai, who were both graduating.

While Olver had never sewn before, the school brought in facilitators to help throughout the school year and over zoom, to teach the parents the craft of sewing and making the regalia. She says she was able to learn how to make a ribbon skirt, blanket and learned the technique of beading.

“They gave opportunities for parents to learn different things and it’s a lot connecting to our cultural teachings as well, which is very important,” said Olver.

Olver mentioned that the program has taught her kids, as well as hersel,f a lot about Indigenous culture and it’s traditions and values.

The students graduating will attend kindergarten next year.