Tina Donald

Tina Donald in her office in the Simpcw First Nation office.

Tina Donald is a councillor with the Simpcw First Nation and is in charge of the youth portfolio. She also works for the band as its fisheries and contact coordinator. 

She’s the mother of Rachael Bowser, who I also interviewed at the school. Donald was a parent who was deeply involved in the community school and continues to be today through her role on council where she holds the youth portfolio.

Here are some excerpts from our conversation: 

“We ensure that the school runs their programs how they see fit but keeping the band council informed.”

 “It was very good to have my kids run there because they had the same teachers from basically Grade 1 up until they were finished. Those individuals are still involved in my daughters’ lives today and having the school literally right down the hallway from me and my employer was open enough that if my kids were sick, I can do work from home or if they became sick in the middle of the day, I just left. There was no, ‘you can go home with your kids or you’ve got to find someone to look after them.’ There was that openness to having them down the hallway from the school because they understood that relationship.”

“Having them close by and being involved with their education was even better.”

“When they’re in our school, each child, they get that one-on-one and they’re made to feel that they are special. They’re not in a huge classroom setting or a huge school for that matter so that not only are their teachers involved with them but the teacher’s aide, the supervisors at lunch time and recess time and the other teachers in the other other classes are all involved with who they are so one of the things that I grew up in this community is that it takes a community to raise a child and the teachers at that school are a huge part of that.”

“The school, to me, I believe they give our children a really good a really good base to start off from so if you learn a healthy living, healthy lifestyle, how to get along with everyone when you’re young then it carries on with you as you carry on in the world, as you’ve seen with Rachael and talking with Charli, you can see the difference as opposed to other student who may not have been here and because the way our school is set up, when I was part of the parents committee, if you were a parent and there was three other parents and I needed three tasks done I would come to you and say, ‘I need one, two, three done, which one do you want to do, not can you do it because that would be giving you an option opting out. That wasn’t an option, when I was involved in the school you had to do something. To me, you had to be as a parent involved in the school in some little way, it wasn’t just ship your kids off and pick them up at the end of the day and anything we’re doing, parents need to be involved.”

“We have, I think, 45 elders now and those 45 elders I’d say not all of those are fluent speaking, they can understand but whether they can speak it, I don’t know and they’re our elders so once they’re gone, it’s gone so if we don’t keep that going within our students and keep the parents talking as well, then it’s gone. It’s no longer there.”

“As council members, we’re role models within the community... we need to get out there and practice. To me practice living on the land, going out berry picking, fishing, hunting, gathering. I find it really hard to go tell someone to do something I’m not willing to do myself so I and my family get out and do those kinds of things. Rachael’s my fisher, Tiffy’s my hunter and I pick the berries and Roger picks the berries  as well but we get out and practice that on the land and if want someone to do something, I better be prepared to do it myself and as a community member, keeping that language and culture alive. Not only for me but to me it’s keeping what my grandfather and grandmother have taught me and keeping their memories alive too because there’s different things that they gave to you from their family and passed on so if I didn’t carry that on then, it’s gone.”

“With our school they’ve taken it very seriously because they’ve gone to year-round schooling. We start school up in August now so I able to take in August the kids out and do fishing and they learn how to preserve that fish, whether it’s smoked or canned and they put that away for the elders’ Christmas baskets at Christmas. They go out and gather berries and they make jam or can it and again that goes away for the elders’ Christmas baskets so they’re learning the process but giving back to the elders, giving back to the community as well so I think the school takes its role very seriously.”

When she looks at what gets her excited at the school level, this is what she said:

“Knowing that we have those students here and to because I have youth as one of my portfolios I take it very seriously. Our youth are our future and if you don’t let them know where they’ve been, how is it that they’ll learn where they’re going. They need to know who they are not only as an individual but as a Simpcw First Nations member. To have the good solid understanding, and that was one of things I taught my girls was that, ‘this is who you are and this is where you come from’ so when anybody at school came up and either tried to face them or call First Nations down or you know the prejudice they might have felt in school, at least they would be able to stand up and say, ‘no, this is how it is.’ Not only the history, but the history of the band, the history of First Nations in general and what we’ve had to go through so they had that understanding of what went on so they can defend who they are and why they’re doing what they’re doing.”

 “It’s been a constant throughout the whole community and I believe that’s what give our school and the community that solid base is that constant that’s there within the school and what they teach and put out for our kids and not only culturally and language wise but how they interact with the outside world as well.”