(Facebook/Mistawasis Nêhiyawak)

By Jaryn Vecchio

New app created to better connect Mistawasis members

Apr 12, 2023 | 1:00 PM

Members of Mistawasis Nêhiyawak will now have an easier time keeping up to date on everything important happening in the community.

A new app has been created with leadership planning to provide updates on different things like community events, job postings, and more.

Councillor Colby Daniels told paNOW it will also come in handy if something as serious as the stabbing attack on the James Smith First Nation were to happen.

“We’d be able to send out some notification if there was an emergency.”

The idea started to get traction last December with Daniels leading the way. Despite not being a big technology person himself, he knew this could be very beneficial.

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“I thought it would be a great tool in our tool chest,” he said. “(Nowadays) you turn around if you forget your cellphone because your whole day is there and everyone is connected, so I just wanted to build on a really good foundation that we already have in the community.”

Mistawasis Nêhiyawak is not the first Indigenous community to develop such an app.

They’ve also seen the benefits they can have firsthand as Denise Desjardins, a language teacher at Chief Mistawasis School, incorporated different language learning tools into multiple apps to help her students with their studies. This was one of the many reasons she was awarded a Prime Minister’s Certificate of Achievement back in 2018.

The Mistawasis Nêhiyawak app can be downloaded from the App Store and Google Play Store. Leadership is hoping all of the roughly 3,000 members they have nationwide download it.

Daniels added there will be options for members to provide feedback in the future, whether it’s through door-knocking or a survey.

“If they have some ideas in how we can build and expand, I’m all for that,” he said. “I like having those conversations.”

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Jaryn.Vecchio@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @princealbertnow