We love hearing about school visits from I Love First Peoples! We at Janome are so proud to support learning opportunities for Indigenous youth living in remote communities through the Sew & Sew program!
In September we shared with you all about a fashion show which was put on by the students of the Chief Ahtahkakoop School in the community of Ahtahkakoop Cree Nation on Treaty 6 Territory. We are excited to have a video to share with you now.
Recently, sewing program coordinator Jenny Ambrose visited Chief Ahtahkakoop School to spend some time with sewing and culture teacher Marcy Whitefish. Earlier this year, Janome Canada gifted their existing sewing lab with two Janome FA4 sergers during their community fashion show.
Jenny was able to spend an afternoon with Marcy and one of her students to help get them comfortable threading their machines both the quick way (tie on method) and from scratch. Now that they are pros at threading, their new sergers will be a welcome feature in the sewing lab!
Many of the I Love First Peoples partner schools have set up their sewing labs in the culture or land based learning spaces. One of the beautiful perks is that you get to learn so much more than sewing skills! Yesterday the room at Ahtahkakoop doubled as a moose meat processing station! Please note, no sergers were harmed during this sewing lesson!
Over the summer, Ahtahkakoop community members built this amazing sewing cabinet with sliding barn doors. Now all the machines, fabric, tools and notions have their place and can be easily found!
The I Love First Peoples sewing program can only happen with the dedication of teachers like Marcy who inspire the youth in their communities every day. They do so much more than teach, they build support around their programs by including elders and aunties who all help to keep the sewing labs exciting and culturally significant.
If you would like to support this program, please consider donating here:
https://www.ilovefirstpeoples.ca/donate
Janome Life 