Public Service Prize
Though she might not have seen it coming, Édith Cloutier recently received a phone call that would change her life, one informing her that she had won the National Aboriginal Achievement Award for Public Service.
Having been nominated by her colleagues at the Val-d’Or Native Friendship Centre, Cloutier is being recognized for her contributions to the Aboriginal peoples of Val-d’Or and beyond, having spent the last 20 years as the centre’s executive director.
On receiving the phone call, Cloutier said she was completely caught off guard. “We don’t do what we do here with the expectation of being rewarded. We do it because we believe it contributes to changing things and making a difference in the lives of our people.”
After being notified of her big win, Cloutier traveled to Ottawa to meet Roberta Jamieson, President and CEO of the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation, and the 13 other winners from across Canada.
Together the 14 winners were presented in the House of Commons, which was followed by a reception in their honour hosted by the Speaker of the House on November 17. A televised gala event and award ceremony will be held for them in Regina on March 26, 2010.
“What is different in receiving this type of award, and what has really touched me about it, is that it is from the Aboriginal people. This is recognition from our own people and that gives me a different sense of pride,” said Cloutier.
After receiving her award, Cloutier was told by Jamieson that with this win came obligations and responsibilities in that the winners are public role models. For Cloutier this translates into a responsibility to Aboriginal youth who she hopes will strive to follow in her footsteps by putting their hearts and minds into everything they do.
Part of what has made Cloutier so happy about her award is what it can do to raise the profile of those working in Friendship Centres across the country and draw attention to the importance of what they do.
“There are so many other people out there who are doing the same type of work every day, working in Friendship Centres and being active in change,” said Cloutier.
She does not want anyone to forget the day-to-day struggles that Canada’s Friendship Centres face. Though these community development organizations serve as a frontline to many urban Aboriginals and provide them with a multitude of services, they are still dramatically underfunded and struggle to make ends meet.
Funded through Canadian Heritage, the Friendship Centres across the country have not seen a core funding budget increase since the mid-’90s, despite how much the cost of living has risen since that time. This means that the staff members at many of these centres have not seen a salary increase in decades.
Despite this, the Friendship Centre model has been so successful in Canada that Cloutier recently traveled to Australia to present it at two international conferences for Indigenous peoples. Cloutier attended the Australian Institute for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies National Indigenous Studies Conference in Canberra and a second conference in Melbourne on socioeconomic development.
“What was interesting to see was how the federal governments in both countries relate to Indigenous people. Despite the differences in the systems, we face similar challenges and social problems,” said Cloutier.
For Cloutier, the Friendship Centre in Val-d’Or is the embodiment of socioeconomic development in the sense that it is a thriving business but every cent goes back into bettering the community. Unlike many centres across Canada, the one in Val-d’Or has several businesses within the facility, such as the gift shop, space rentals for events, a cafeteria and a hostel service.
“We want to generate revenue through those economic activities but the purpose is to create more jobs for our people to give them dignity through a job and give them the opportunity to increase their quality of life by having a job. At the same time, if we do have money and we create wealth, there is the possibility for the Friendship Centre to use that to develop other projects that are not being funded,” said Cloutier.
With her 20 years of dedication to the Friendship Centre movement, Cloutier feels privileged to have worked for the centre in view of all that it has given her. A labour of love, she calls her centre a “second university,” because of the many learning opportunities it has provided her over the last two decades.