An event held by the Ontario Native Women’s Association Timmins (ONWA) allowed the organization to reconnect with its community members.
The painting workshop was held at Gillies Lake this afternoon. Participants were provided with painting supplies and snacks, while local Indigenous artist Barb Goodwin led the workshop.
“Here it allows us to be outdoors and keep in mind and follow the guidelines by the health unit,” said ONWA’s branch manager Anne Iserhoff. “With COVID coming about, we had to close our doors really abruptly and it created a lot of disconnect between staff and our community members. This is the opportunity to reconnect as a lot of it was done over virtual platforms but you don’t get that social connection.”
Goodwin, who moved to Timmins from Kashechewan First Nation about 10 years ago, said this was her second workshop. The first one was held at the Timmins Museum: National Exhibition Centre back in February.
For today's event, she brought her painting depicting a paw print with a woman in red dress representing missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and used it as a reference. Workshop participants then recreated the painting, with Goodwin helping them along the way.
“I do (painting) to share my talent,” she said. “I look forward to do it more in the future.”
Michael Okros, one of the workshop’s participants, said he’s taken part in several events hosted by ONWA.
“It’s great programming for Indigenous people and people in general to be active and learn about traditional teachings. It’s nice to be a part of it. You learn a lot about yourself and your culture,” he said. “Because of COVID, (the programming) opened up to other people to utilize the services.”
Since the start of the pandemic, ONWA Timmins has changed its programming in order to practise safety measures while remaining connected with its members. Moving into the fall season, the non-profit is planning to continue holding workshops via Zoom.
Community members are encouraged to send their feedback and ideas on what programming they would like the organization to offer in the future.
“We want to leave in the hands of our community members because they’re the ones who are directing it, so giving them that opportunity to plan what would benefit them,” Iserhoff said.
Some ideas for fall season mentioned by ONWA’s staff included how to can harvested meats, fruits and vegetables or how to make pie crust from scratch for Thanksgiving.
“And then for Christmas, that’s why we want people’s ideas, but use jars to make gifts,” said ONWA's Mary Boyden. “We’d be happy to get people’s ideas.”
Suggestions can be sent to Mary Boyden at [email protected], Angela Julian at 705-262-7231 or [email protected] or Anne Iserhoff at [email protected] or 705-262-5899.
