(Picture: Angela Recollet with Shkagamik Kwe Health Centre, Wahnapitae First Nations Chief Myles Tyson, Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci)
By Angela Gemmill
The province is helping Wahnapitae First Nations with a construction project which will benefit the aboriginal community.
The reserve, near Capreol, is building a $4.5-million multi-purpose centre.
The province’s Northern Ontario Heritage Fund Corporation is investing one million dollars towards the facility.
Chief Myles Tyson explains the 84-hundred square foot building will include a meeting hall, a medical clinic, business incubator services and the community’s Sustainable Development Department.
Sudbury M-P-P Rick Bartolucci sees this as a way to foster opportunities within the First Nations community.
He says the local project will create four jobs for now, but he says the business incubator services will help create even more in the future.
The medical clinic will be run by the Shkagamik Kwe Health Centre and Executive Director Angela Recollet has high hopes.
She says they’ll have a dedicated wing and they’ll bring in primary healthcare access, like physicians, nurse practitioners, Diabetes specialists, dietitians.
It will mean the Wahnapitae First Nation Elders and seniors won’t have to leave the community, for long drives into urban communities when they have medical appointments.
The Wahnapitae First Nations project is one of five aboriginal projects to receive recent provincial funding from the NOHFC.
Other aboriginal communities to get funding from the NOHFC include Pic Mobert FN, Kasabonika FN, Eabametoong FN and Windigo FN Council.
The WFN centre is slated for completion in August.
(Wahnapitae First Nations Chief Myles Tyson and Sudbury MPP Rick Bartolucci in front of the centre currently under construction)