Volunteering

Jason Smallboy Contributor

Greetings! It’s been a while since I wrote something freely like this, with the exception of my glorious Facebook updates. However, I have a few thoughts that have come to me recently.

First of all, I will give you an idea of what I’ve been up to.  As a member of the NAN Oshkaatisak (Young Peoples Council) I am very anxious for summer!

There have been a few things recently making positive headlines for Aboriginal people. For instance, the Olympic Games were very much influenced by Aboriginal culture and heritage with Native art featured throughout the event.  The opening was amazing and featured many traditional Aboriginal dancers from all over the country. It was back in February I participated in the 2010 Winter Olympics as part of the Chiefs of Ontario portion of the 2010 Aboriginal Pavilion.  I remember watching the news at that time, on a story about the Olympics.  It said that the organizing committee is sponsoring the 2010 Aboriginal Pavilion.  When I heard that, my first thought was, “Well, this organizing committee is pretty huge in terms of reputation, and they are sponsoring this Aboriginal event? That’s great!”

It was by sheer chance I was asked to be a part of the Aboriginal Pavilion. I was at work one day in January and knew a bunch of friends and colleagues who were going to be doing a skit at the Chiefs of Ontario Economic Forum later that night, so I decided to go and watch my friends rock the house! I entered the gala-type room and I saw my friends sitting at a table so I joined them.

And sure enough, I asked about the skit, and they responded, “You should join us!” I said “No way yo! HAHA! I came to watch you guys!”, but after a little twisting of my rubber arm, I decided ‘why not, it’ll be fun.’

I had no clue what we were doing and we only had about an hour before we were to perform.  We entered the room for ‘rehearsal’ and it was more like a bunch of friends exchanging jokes and ideas that were totally useless. However, there was one idea that seemed to have promise.

It was about the history of the Fur Trade in Ontario for Aboriginal people.  So, we decided to go with that idea and the skit slowly came together. We had props and other items that we would end up using for the play that added that little extra zing. It was awesome!

From that performance, my fellow colleagues asked if we wanted to perform the same play at the Olympics. I said of course I would! Several weeks later, I was in Vancouver for the performance.

We were asked to perform the play a total of four times back-to-back in front of four groups of people. I was feeling nervous before the first performance but after rehearsing it a couple more times, my nerves calmed down.  

The first performance went pretty well considering I froze for what felt like an hour but was actually less than 10 seconds. I was supposed to say, “Hello, Thank you for coming, this is our land” in my Native Cree language, but ended up saying, “Hello... ummm...” then paused and then said “Sorry!” in English and finally brought myself to say “Hello, Thank you for coming” in Cree. The rest of the performance was gravy and went off without a hitch.

What’s the overall moral of the story you ask? You will never know what opportunities will come your way by just helping out some friends.  It is through these types of stories that we (NAN Oshkaatisak) try to encourage other Youth in our communities to volunteer. I have been volunteering for a long time now and I have met some amazing people over my journeys. I have witnessed some incredible events and I am proud to be able to say that I was there. I like to talk about success stories and I really enjoy hearing success stories from my fellow Youth. It gives me a sense of hope and pride for the future.

Jason Smallboy is a Moose Cree First Nation band member.