Mission Statement

The vision and mission of the Agency emerged from a process of action research conducted in the Tåîchô communities in the early years of the Dogrib Divisional Board of Education 1988 (see the documentl Strong Like Two People: DDBE 1991)

The outcome of this search resulted in a vision and mission for a Board of Education. However by 1991, this work was modified to include the delivery of health and child and family services, and re-validated by the Dogrib Community Services Board in 1998.

In the fall of 2006, the new Tåîchô Community Services Agency reviewed the vision and mission and again validated it as remaining relevant for the Agency. This action research work began in the summer of 1998 when people from every Tåîchô community participated in a meeting at Roundrock Lake. People met in the barrenlands at the place where Edzo had made peace with Akaitcho a century ago and looked critically at where the Tåîchô had come from, where they were today and where they were going. Both the Roundrock meeting and a followup meeting held at the Friendship Centre in Behchokö were recorded and transcript made of the discussions. Consensual themes emerged that eventually became ths basis of the vision and mission of the Board. These themes were then developed into a preamble from which emerges the mission statement of the Board. The preamble is a description of the shared experiences of the Tåîchô people, where they are today and where they hope to go in the future, from which emerges a description of the role and responsibilities of the Agency.

Embedded in community experiences, these themes were easily modified even as the scope of the original education programs expanded to include Health and Social Services in 1997.

The vision and mission of the Tåîchô Community Services Agency is a powerful evocation of the beliefs of people from the Tåîchô communities. They speak eloquently and forcefully for the establishment of programs and services to be built upon a foundation of Tåîchô values, that integrates the knowledge and skills of two worlds.

Vision: "Do Nake Lani Nats'etso...Strong Like Two People"

Chief Jimmy Bruneau with the Minister Of Indian Affairs & Northern Development and the future Prime Minister, the Honourable Jean Chretien (January 9, 1971

The vision statement of the Agency is "Strong Like Two People". In 1971, a frail Chief Jimmy Bruneau officially opened the Edzo school that was to bear his name. On this occasion he spoke of the importance of a model of bicultural and bilingual education where equal emphasis must be given to educating children in two cultures.

Some years later in 1991, a respected Behchokö elder, Elizabeth Mackenzie, commented on her understanding of the words of Chief Jimmy Bruneau, describing his vision as "Strong Like Two People". Originally, the statement referred to young people, and meant learning from, and being competent in the worlds of two people...the traditional world of the Tåîchô elders and the modern world that surrounds people today.

After the Dogrib Divisional Board of Education had expanded its mandate to include the delivery of health and social services, Board members, educators, healthcare professionals, social workers and other Board staff agreed that this vision of "Strong Like Two People" should continue...as a metaphor for the desire to build an organization, and create programs and services that recognize the strength and importance of two cultures.

Mission Statement

Our Agency's mission statement is longer than the mission statement of most organizations. This was intentional, as it was believed that it was critically important to highlight the unique nature of both the Agency and the Tåîchô communities it serves. The statement attempts to synthesize a series of themes that originally were expressed by elders who attended the Roundrock Lake Cultural Project (1989) and the "Strong Like Two People" (1991) community meetings. The mission is written in two parts. The first part describes the community and cultural context of the Agency...where the Tåîchô have come from as a people and where they are today. The second part speaks to the specific role of the Agency in working in Tåîchô communities.

Context

For thousands of years, Tåîchô people have lived in harmony with their families, their communities and with the land. Our people took pride in passing on our knowledge, skills and values to each generation and in the excellence of this tradition, our survival as a people was assured. In this century we became dependent on the church and the government and in this loss of control, we find that our families, the community, language and culture are threatened. Our very survival as a people is at stake. Thus...

Role of the Agency

We, the members of the Tåîchô Community Services Agency are committed to the development of a continuum of care that will return control of education, health and social programs and services to the people or our communities, support them in the task of strengthening their families, promote the knowledge and skills they need to survive today and model the values they need to live in harmony with their families, our communities and our land.

Naowo Ts’etsii Weghaa Eghalats’eda Tåîchô (PDF)

Naowo Ts’etsii Weghaa Eghalats’eda Tåîchô (PDF)