Josee Lusignan with Chief Larry Ahenakew pictured in November. Photo courtesy I Love First Peoples, Facebook.
A Quebec-based group called I Love First Peoples stopped in at Ahtahkakoop’s schools on Friday to deliver goodies and a strong message to the Cree Nation’s young people.
Josee Lusignan said she started I Love First Peoples about five years ago in Winnipeg, where she met homeless Indigenous people and heard their heartbreaking stories.
Since then, her group has launched a shoebox campaign to deliver items that bring joy to Indigenous kids across the country. They also launched the “I love Attawapiskat” campaign last year.
On Friday, the Lusignan and her group were in Ahtahkakaoop to hand out shoeboxes to 500 students.
“The children just spontaneously coming forward and giving us hugs, just the love that flowed today was incredible. The children understand that these shoeboxes come from Canadians who want to say ‘I love you and I encourage you,'” she said.
Lusignan said I Love First Peoples aims to do more than gift the boxes, by also promoting education to First Nations people.
Ahtahkakoop’s young people face the issues of addiction, gangs, abuse, bullying, and barriers to completing their education, said Chief Larry Ahenakew.
“I think they’re very beneficial and important to our First Nation communities because they’re out there to promote healthy living of our students, how important to stay in school is,” Aheneakew said.
On Friday, the elementary school students on Ahtahkakoop about a big anti-bullying pilot project that’s in the works exclusively for them.
“They’re coming to Gatineau in April and being paired with a non-Indigenous school so that’s going to be launched officially in April,” Lusignan said. “We started to talk about the fact that we will be working specifically with the school on anti-bullying.”
She said this is all happening thanks to a request for help from band member and NHL legend Fred Sasakamoose, who was already affiliated with I Love First Peoples as one of their celebrity spokespeople.
Another celebrity was slated to be in Ahtahkakoop for the I Love First Peoples visit. Actor Forrest Goodluck played Leonardo Dicaprio’s The Revenant character’s son was unable to be there in person due to an audition in Los Angeles, so he skyped in.
“He was able to talk to the kids about his kind of eccentricity as a theatrical person and how he was rejected a lot in school because of that and what he had to overcome to achieve his dreams and not allow people to bring him down,” Lusignan said.
This is I Love First Peoples’ second visit to Ahtahkakoop. They were in the community in November and have plans to return in coming months.