Strathmore will be presenting a resolution to Alberta Municipalities (formerly AUMA) at their convention which will support the idea Indigenous Awareness Training and Support.

Strathmore town council held a special meeting on Monday night where the council passed the recommendation. Now the town’s administration will submit the resolution to Alberta Municipality and also send the recommendation to the communities of Rockyford and Standard, for them to consider seconding the resolution.

Councillor Denise Peterson, spoke about the discussion between Strathmore and Siksika Nation Councillor Herman Yellow Old Woman and others in 2015 about a lack of Indigenous history within the education system.

They talked about the necessity of bringing lived experience voices into the education system.

“There was a lot of conversation about deficits in our curriculum in terms of how we related issues of indigenous history in this country and that there was just a significant deficit and particularly of authentic voices persons with lived experience,” she said.

One of the things that followed from those Strathmore-Siksika discussions she said was that a small thing that could be accomplished was to urge the provincial government to envelope funding in Alberta Education for schools, schools jurisdictions, and home school to be able to access those those authentic voices in terms of the learning and support for curriculum,” said Peterson.

The resolution asks the Government of Alberta to provide financial support and resources to allow Indigenous elders and knowledge keepers to share their lived experiences directly with students and teachers in Alberta’s education system.

Peterson explained that it doesn't mean there will be funding in addition to the funding that already exists. “We're not asking taxpayers to pay more money to this end, we're just asking for mindfulness around dedicating something that they would determine would be reasonable to allow schools and schools to jurisdictions to bring this forward.”

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