It’s important for our conference to head out on the land, just like we do for education. Glad we could bring participants to Ámą Kù both days under the warm sun.

This past week we hosted our second Early Years Conference with 150 people in attendance. Keynote speakers Dr. Jean Clinton, whose phrase "Love Builds Brains" was the conference theme, talked about brain development and Dr. Melissa Trembley discussed cultural safety. We also had workshops about bringing cultural practices into early learning and day to day use of the Early Years toolbox cards.

Thank you to our presenters and participants for engaging wholeheartedly with the content. And Gunałchîsh and Shä̀w níthän to Chief Sean Smith, Sarah Johnston-Smith and their daughter for helping us close out the conference in such a meaningful way.

And lots coming up at Whitehorse Early Years in April…

All Indigenous families, whether registered with our program or not, are welcome to attend our drop-ins. There will be snacks, activities, beading and knitting supplies, and a chance to see our space and meet the Early Years team.

If you have any questions about the monthly activities, email EarlyYears@yfned.ca, call 867-667-6962 ext. 123 or check out www.yfned.ca/EarlyYears.

YFNED and the Yukon Child and Youth Advocate Office have launched a review of systemic racism in education.

Over the next year, we’ll be travelling across the Yukon asking students, teachers, parents, community members to share their education experiences in Whitehorse and the communities.

We want to hear your stories!

Take our survey and learn more: www.yfned.ca/racismreview

Double the feast, double the hampers, double the fun this Spring Break?

Big shout out to the YFNED cooks who made quite the feast of bison stroganoff (and all the fixings) last Saturday.

It was also our second day of spring break-fast hampers. Thank you to everyone who helped with distribution.

See you at the next feast on April 20th at the KDCC!

The MTU Wellness Team has been out and about this month, supporting cultural camps, March break programming, Mt. Sima trips, hunting camp, and classroom programming. We were in Ross River, Mayo, Carmacks, Pelly Crossing and traveled out of territory to the Natoysopoyiis Resource Centre at SAIT (pictured above).

This past weekend Ashwin Freyne, Knute Johnsgaard and Lorraine Wolfe traveled to Old Crow to instruct a Skimmer Building workshop at the Chief Zzeh Gillit School, in partnership with Vuntut Gwitchin Governance. The First Nation selected four youth from grades 7 – 12. The finished products were amazing and we had 100% youth engagement, and the plan is for the youth to use the skimmers on the ongoing trip by skidoo from Old Crow to Ft McPherson. (Pictured below).

The whole wellness team has been learning to make Handgames drums to be able to support others to make their own. We spent three days working on this.

Allied Health has also been on the move with trips to Pelly Crossing, Beaver Creek, Old Crow, Teslin, Ross River, Haines Junction, Destruction Bay, Whitehorse, Dawson, and Teslin.

Below is one of the Old Crow youth working on the skimmers.