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Aboriginal family school to open

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The Calgary Board of Education's commitment to all its students has led the city's public education providers to offer a different approach to Aboriginal schooling beginning this September.

The new school year will see the doors open on a kindergarten to Grade 6 Aboriginal family school in the northeast part of the city.

"This is one way of better meeting the needs of Aboriginal students, whose needs aren't being met as well as they might in mainstream programming," said Kally Krylly, a system co-ordinator for program renewal for the board.

Record number of Aboriginal students graduate

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More than 300 family, friends and guests watched as 45 Aboriginal students were honored at the 5th annual Traditional Celebration of Achievement in Fort McMurray on May 03.

The students, who graduated from Father Patrick Mercredi community high school, Westwood community high school, Fort McMurray Composite high school and from the Chipewyan Prairie Dene high school in Janvier, are from the communities of Anzac, Fort McMurray, Janvier, Chard, Fort McKay and Fort Chipewyan.

What's all the fuss about Hepatitis C?

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Hepatitis C is a virus that causes liver disease. Less than one per cent of Canadians may carry the Hepatitis C virus and most don't know they have it. Aboriginal people are becoming infected with Hepatitis C at over seven times the rate as non-Aboriginal Canadians.

How do I get it?

The virus is transmitted when your blood is exposed to an infected person's blood. Prior to 1990, the Canadian blood system did not screen for the Hepatitis C virus. Anyone who received blood or blood product transfusions before

Ancestors exhibit opens at Galt in Lethbridge

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The usual question Louis Soop asks when he visits museums resulted in an unusual answer when he went to the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto in 1998.

The request to view Kainai artifacts in the possession of the ROM led to the viewing of Kainai artifacts housed by the British Museum in London, England. And that led to the current exhibit of Akatapiiwa/Ancestors showing at the Galt Museum in Lethbridge until Sept. 15.

The exhibit, which opened in May, is one of the largest of its kind in Canadian history.

All Native cast, ambitious project films in Alberta

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Casting calls from Rocky Mountain House south to Standoff have given 2,000 First Nations people a chance to work in the television industry.

Classic Casting, of Calgary is casting extras for the filming of Dreamkeeper, a Hallmark mini-series that's set in New Mexico in the 1800s, but is being filmed in Alberta.

"It's a wonderful story," said Alyson Lockwood, in charge of casting the extras.

The eight-hour, four-part mini-series tells the story of a grandfather and grandson making their way to a powwow.

Community loses respected Elder

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When Dan McLean passed away on April 9 at the age of 89, his passing left a void in the lives of the many people.

Described by some as a trailblazer and a progressive thinker who was dedicated to making things better for his people, McLean was also remembered as being a man that was full of humor, who never failed to make those around him feel good.

McLean was an honorary lifetime member of the Aboriginal Multi-Media Society (AMMSA) board of directors, publishers of Alberta Sweetgrass, but that was just one accomplishment on a