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Neekawnisidok, an exhibition of fine arts, had its official opening on June 14 in the rotunda at Toronto City Hall. The opening kicked off a week of events marking the ninth anniversary of National Aboriginal Day.

Neekawnisidok, which means "all our relations" in Ojibway, featured work by 14 artists, including Michael Barber, Patrick Doherty, Lorraine Hughes, Gordon Miller and Joshua Peltier. The media includes acrylics, oils, digital images, mixed media and watercolours.

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A long list of new (or newly revived) initiatives that the Assembly of First Nations hopes to undertake over the coming months will cost a fist-full of money, some say upwards of $20 million.

Inquiries have shown that budgets for few of the initiatives have been finalized, but there is talk that the money flowing through AFN will again swell to the amount not seen since National Chief Phil Fontaine held office in the late 1990s.

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"When you give a little, you get something back." That's the guiding principle of Randy Trudeau's life.

The Wikwemikong artist believes that successful artists should give back to their community. With this in mind, Trudeau has donated one of his paintings to the newly renovated Wikwemikong public library. The oval-shaped painting is in the form of a shield depicting the seven grandfather teachings. The artwork is intended to pay tribute to his mother Lina Theresa Trudeau.

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Delegates to the second annual Aboriginal Women in Business Conference showed they are as interested in community building as they are in building successful businesses.

"Have the zeal of a missionary," said speaker Vicki Antone, who talked about her community development experience. "It's love that keeps us going. I love my community and I love to help other people."

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Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) is not a topic a lot of people want to talk about, SAID Mary MacCormick who heads up a unique public education program aimed at preventing the tragedy. She has just finished training 10 facilitators at the Niagara Regional Native Centre to help spread the word about preventing SIDS.

When a baby dies, sometimes parents blame themselves and turn their grief inwards, or blame someone else in their family, but unfortunately that does nothing to prevent the next infant death.

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Laurentian University awarded an honourary Doctor of Letters degree to playwright Tomson Highway on June 4. Highway had already obtained bachelor degrees in music and English at the University of Western Ontario and formerly was employed in social work.

In recent years, Highway has attracted wide acclaim for his work in theatre and for his plays and books. He lives part of the year in Greater Sudbury. His birthplace is Thompson, Man.

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The saga of Tsuxiit (Luna) continues as plans to relocate the killer whale have now been postponed. After several unsuccessful attempts in late June to reunite Tsuxiit with its pod in Pedder Bay, located near Victoria, members of the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) have arranged a meeting this month to discuss ways they can resolve this issue.

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Levi C. McAteer of Manning, Alta. is one of six young people chosen as the National Aboriginal Health Organization's (NAH0) National Aboriginal Role Models for 2004.

McAteer is the youngest of the role models who spring from communities across Canada. He is known in his community for his athletic abilities and is skip of his juvenile curling team.

The role models are Aboriginal youth between the ages of 13 and 30 and represent First Nations, Inuit and Metis.

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"Online learning is a must in an isolated community," Sylvia Stephens insists.

Stephens, 55 is an adult learner from a community of 600 people who can't say enough about the value of education at any age, especially the online variety. She wants more members of her Nisga'a Nation to know how valuable it can be.

"Promoting education is a must for our people. There's four communities in our Nisga'a Nation and I've never heard of anyone who has completed (online) certificates."

She hopes more people will benefit from them the way she has done.

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The First Nations Panel on Fisheries released a report June 10 with recommendations the panel hopes will be backed by British Columbia First Nations.