Big Grassy teen wins contest writing about healthy living in her community

By Ken Johnston
Editor

How healthy is your community?
That is a question that Rainy River High School senior Hilary Tuesday-Archie found herself asking when a teacher, Laura Armistead, showed her information on a contest.
An organization called Health Nexus created the contest called, “Telling our Health Stories: A contest for aboriginal youth.”
In its promo material it said, “Aboriginal people are famous for their stories. We have been telling stories forever.”
The contest asked aboriginal youth between the ages of 12 and 29 to share stories about healthy living in their community. Tuesday-Archie was an active person, participating in volleyball, basketball, baseball and other sports. However, when she started researching how active her community, Big Grassy River First Nation, is, she was surprised. “I didn’t expect there to be so much going on!” she said Friday.
She wrote an essay telling the story of healthy living in Big Grassy. Here are some excerpts from “The healthy community of Big Grassy River First Nation:”
Big Grassy River First Nation promotes awareness of healthy lifestyles through Esiniiwab Health Centre.
The services offered in the health centre include counseling, nursing, and healthy lifestyles. The bulletin boards are full of posters, brochures along the walls that help promote healthy foods, how to stay healthy, and statistics about the negative effects of not staying active. Rachel Copenace offers cooking classes for parents in the community called the Community Kitchen to promote healthy eating. Tanya Indian, the Healthy Lifestyles Worker, and Elaine Ross, the Community Wellness Worker, are running a program as of now which is called 8 Weeks to Wellness. During this program, participants within the community are given exercise schedules of when they can work out at the local fitness centre and are given information on healthy eating to help reach their weight goal. A program that involves these types of activities is an annual event, for example last year this program was called Moccasins on the Move. There are prizes every week for each winner. The fitness centre in the community was recently renovated and is open three days a week; it includes treadmills, weight lifting, exercise bikes, stair climbers, and a sauna. The health centre also has a Diabetes Prevention Program, Nancy Gamache and Patsy Tuesday are the coordinators for this. Nearly every week throughout each month they go around the community to visit the people who have diabetes and help them stay healthy.
Pegamigaabo School, our elementary school, sponsors a variety of activities such as skating and swimming every month. All students in the school are invited to attend.
Each class attends tournaments such as baseball and soccer. They also have a cross country team.
They have a hot lunch program everyday which is based on giving the students a healthy, nutritious meal.
I love my community and I feel they do an excellent job of promoting healthy lifestyles because they get everyone to participate. Recently, I made the better decision in my life to quit smoking. I have been smoke free for 3 months now and plan on continuing to stay smoke free.
Tuesday-Archie’s submission was one of three picked as a winner in Ontario and she was notified just before Christmas break from school. “It surprised me when I heard!”
Her prize is a $500 digital camera with a catch. The catch is she has to use the camera to make a video of her story about the healthy community of Big Grassy River. Support for making the video comes from Health Nexus. She has until the end of January to complete the video which will then be used as a tool to create healthy living practises for Aboriginal people in Ontario. The tool will be shared with about 1,000 service providers.
Once Tuesday-Archie has the video completed she will get to keep the camera and also receive $100.
Her enthusiasm for being active has gone beyond sports. She also recently quit smoking and has been smoke-free for more than five months! She also has started being a motivator to her younger members of her community, speaking to any grade 9 students from Big Grassy and encouraging them to try out for high school teams. “It has worked! We have many kids from Big Grassy on teams this year!”
“I am happy about this experience and glad that it will help create a broader awareness about active living,” concluded Tuesday-Archie.