Aboriginal Achievement Week will feature a workshop on drum circle.

The University of Saskatchewan Students’ Union has secured a $40,000 sponsorship for Aboriginal Achievement Week, a five-day celebration of aboriginal culture that will run March 11-15.

The sponsorship comes from Cultural Connections for Aboriginal Youth, a local organization that funds community events. The funds provided will support a number of the week’s events, including a round dance, a banquet and an arts and comedy evening.

“We’re trying to get as many people from our community, the people who work on campus and study on campus, but also the people who live around the city to come and check this out,” USSU President Jared Brown said.

The Aboriginal Students’ Centre has been working closely with the USSU and the Indigenous Students’ Council to put the week together.

Annie Battiste, one of the week’s main organizers and mentorship coordinator for the ASC, said the activities will celebrate a variety of parts of aboriginal culture.

“It’s a celebration of aboriginal culture and achievement on campus, and it’s not just academic achievement: it’s creativity, art — all sorts of different things,” Batiste said.

Three years ago, the USSU made an agreement with the Office of the Treaty Commissioner to host a week that celebrates all Canadians as treaty people.

The week landed in the same month as Aboriginal Achievement Week.

The USSU, ASC and treaty office decided the weeks were too similar. This year We Are All Treaty People Week has been integrated into Aboriginal Achievement Week.

In order to honour their agreement with the treaty office, the USSU will host a series of educational sessions on treaties during Aboriginal Achievement Week. The speakers will focus on the treaties’ roles in education, healthcare and literature, among other things.

“We decided that We Are All Treaty People would become a key role in Aboriginal Achievement week,” Battiste said.

The three student groups and the treaty office will renew their alliance with an official signing ceremony to kick off the week.

The Treaty Six flag, representing the central Saskatchewan treaty, will be given to the university at the flag raising ceremony. First Nations war veteran Roy Alexson, Chief Wallace Fox of Onion Lake Cree Nation and the Treaty Six Tribal Council Chief have been invited to take part in the ceremony.

The flag will be smudged with charred sweet grass outside the atrium of the Agriculture Building and then presented to U of S President Ilene Busch-Vishniac. The flag is expected to be kept in Convocation Hall following the ceremony.

Bob Badger, the cultural coordinator at the ASC, will be leading a pipe ceremony as part the week’s activities. He says that the presentation of the Treaty Six flag to the university is a sign of mutual respect between the university and the people living in Treaty Six.

The week will also celebrate two landmark achievements by aboriginal groups on campus.

The Indigenous Students’ Council will commemorate 35 years of operation during the week while the Indian Teacher Education Program will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

High school students have been invited to attend the sessions and a round dance March 15. They will be shown around campus in hopes that they will attend the U of S in the future, Brown said.

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Photo: University of Saskatchewan/Flickr