$20K for replanting effort

Photo: En’owkin Centre

Penticton’s En’owkin Centre received $20,000 in support of their multi-year project to engage local youth and restore rare and endangered habitats.

The TELUS Thompson Okanagan Community Board members presented the cheque this week, which also supports the recovery of local species at risk and the redevelopment of Indigenous foods.

The project aims to engage at least 1,500 community members to help with propagation and planting of at least 20,000 native plants on Penticton Indian Band territory.         

“We as sqilxw (humans) have been provided for by these families and we need to protect them, as it is our responsibility in this day and age to do what we can to protect all things with roots and to pass on this kind to knowledge to our own nieces and nephews,” said Richard Armstrong, traditional ecological knowledge keeper from En’owkin Centre. “So that maybe they can know and feel the need to protect what is fast disappearing in our territory.”                           

A large focus of the project is to provide employment, volunteer and educational opportunities for Syilx youth aged 6 to 18.     

Project participants will receive basic training in both western scientific and Syilx traditional.