Bonnyville Friendship Centre (BFC) will build and operate a women’s shelter and a transitional housing facility for Indigenous women escaping abuse.
The announcement was made last Thursday at the future site of the two facilities, where the old Bonnyville hospital used to stand.
The shelter will provide emergency shelter for women and children escaping domestic violence and other abuse, and the transitional housing will help them to get on their feet so they can live independently.
Jeannette MacInnis is provincial programs manager for Alberta Native Friendship Centres Association (ANFCA). She said the project is important and exciting.
“Both nationally and provincially, we have plans or frameworks to address violence against Indigenous women,” she said. “But the one thing that is lacking, and everyone knows it, is a safe place that’s culturally safe for Indigenous women and children to go.”
The Bonnyville shelter will be the second off-Reserve Indigenous women’s shelter in Alberta. There is currently one operating in Calgary.
And it will be Alberta’s first shelter to be built and operated by a Friendship Centre.
The plan was to build the shelter first. Just three months before the application deadline, ANFCA convinced BFC executive director Janet Gobert to apply for funding for the transitional housing as well.
It was a lot of work, says ANFCA’s CEO Joanne Mason, and Bonnyville should be proud of what BFC is achieving.
“Friendship Centres do such remarkable work, and it’s not very often that we have this kind of celebration,” she said. “You know the teaching of ‘Humility’— I think the Friendship Centres have got it, and they maybe took it one step too far because most communities don’t realize the remarkable work they do. And Janet and her team here have just done fabulous work.”
Further details from Bonnyville Friendship Centre were not available at press time. Respect will follow up in a future issue.
JEFF GAYE
Which company is building the Women’s Shelter near the old Duclos Hospital?