Wendy Gervais with Metis Nation-Saskatchewan speaks at the Saskatchewan Early Childhood Awards. (Submitted Photo/Metis Nation-Saskatchewan)

By Derek Craddock

Honouring Metis educators

Metis early childhood educators honoured in special ceremony in Regina

May 13, 2024 | 2:12 PM

To help commemorate Early Childhood Educators (ECE) Month, the Metis Nation–Saskatchewan (MN-S) honoured some of their best educators recently.

A special awards gala took place with the Saskatchewan Early Childhood Association (SECA) recognizing three members of the Metis Nation for their outstanding work.

Ashly Dear received the Outstanding Métis Group Home Childcare Provider Award; Tracy Edgar was presented with Outstanding Métis Director, and Brenda Marie Johnson was honoured as Outstanding Métis Early Childcare Educator.

Wendy Gervais, the Associate Minister of Education for the MN-S spoke to paNOW about the awards ceremony, adding that it was a privilege to honour so many talented educators.

“The atmosphere fairly was fairly charged in all honesty, being in a room, there was probably about 300 people there, maybe a little bit more of educators, people working with children of all nations, but it’s more specifically, people who are working and engaging with our children and wanting to really dig deep and grab onto that Michif culture and to support our children in their daycare settings,” she said.

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Ashley Dear began offering priority placement for Metis families in her daycare in 2019 and started working with local Occupational Therapists and Speech and Language Pathologists on-site in 2023, to improve children’s access to these supports.

(Submitted Photo/Metis Nation-Saskatchewan)

In 2019, Tracy Edgar worked as the bus driver and parent liaison at Lloydminster Aboriginal Headstart. She and her husband moved to Battleford where she started working at Pe Ta Pan Preschool Headstart program as co-director.

(Submitted Photo/Metis Nation-Saskatchewan)

Brenda Marie Johnson, who has worked in childcare for more than 25 years, is originally from St. Laurent Man. and began working in a private childcare facility at 18. She took early childhood education classes in the evening and completed her Level 3 in 1997. The following year, she opened a day home. Right now, she works at Paminawasowin Childcare Center at the First Nations University of Canada in Regina.

(Submitted Photo/Metis Nation-Saskatchewan)

Gervais said that honouring Metis educators is extremely important as they are the ones who transfer knowledge, culture, and identity to the next generation.

“I think it’s an absolutely fantastic opportunity for our Metis citizens to be in those positions to be able to not only transfer the morals and values that are embedded in it but also through that comes our knowledge, comes our culture and our history and that is important. We have been really the forgotten nation across Canada,” she said.

Gervais also praised Gabriel Dumont Institue for helping train early childhood educators.

She and the rest of Metis Nation-Saskatchewan are also excited for the future Metis Excellence centres to be built soon in Saskatoon, Regina, and Prince Albert.

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derek.craddock@pattisonmedia.com