ROB MURRAY: I’m joined today by Beckie Scott from Spirit North. Rogers Sports & Media, the parent company of this radio station, has launched the inaugural year of something called All IN to support equity-seeking communities by amplifying stories on a national stage that haven’t always been heard with equal measure. Five organizations were announced for the first year of Rogers All IN and Spirit North was one of them. Congratulations!

BECKIE SCOTT: Thank you, we’re thrilled.

RM: Let’s back up for a second. For those who aren’t familiar, what is Spirit North? What do you do?

BS: That’s a good question, and that’s why this initiative is so important to us. Spirit North is a sport for development organization. We’re a charitable organization working across the country in about 63 different Indigenous communities using sport, physical activity, and land-based activities to engage, empower, and inspire Indigenous children and youth. We use the power of sport to facilitate better health and wellness outcomes, to drive academic outcomes, and to build community engagement, leadership, and life skills.

RM: With your post-World cup and Olympic career, why did you want to focus on Indigenous communities? Was there a specific catalyst that led you down this road?

BS: When I retired, I was invited to be an ambassador for a program operating in Northern Alberta. I visited Indigenous communities for the first time and saw firsthand, and experienced firsthand, the inequality, the poverty, and the lack of opportunity, particularly for kids. Having lived out my own career and achieved what I did in sport, and having had that opportunity always available and accessible to me, I just thought this is such a resource. It’s such a tool and it’s such an incredibly powerful platform to share, and why aren’t we doing that? I saw a real opportunity to use sport for change, as a catalyst for something positive. I think that coincided with the release of the Truth and Reconciliation report where sport was listed among the call for action. It really just galvanized an idea that sport can make a difference, it can be positive, and that we need to do everything we can to make sure kids who are particularly vulnerable or marginalized have that opportunity.

RM: Last time I spoke with you about Spirit North was maybe two or three years ago. It sounds like you’ve really expanded since then. This has become a huge program.

BS: Yeah, we’re a going concern. We have more interest now than we can keep up with and more communities inquiring about starting programs than we can support, which is actually a great problem to have. We are national – we’re everywhere from Northern BC to Thunder Bay and in the Northwest Territories. It’s been a really rapid growth for us but at a manageable pace. We have taken care to ensure the programs are individually tailored to each community and really responsive to that community’s needs, but also traditions, values, and cultural knowledge. It’s all work that’s done in partnership with the communities which has been a really important principle for us to maintain.

RM: I’d imagine it must be personally rewarding to know the kind of difference you’re making in the lives of these kids.

BS: It is for myself and it is for our team, and it does make a difference. We hear daily stories of youth that are thinking in a new way, or have defined themselves with leadership or a new skill, or are walking a little taller because they have confidence now. Those are the kinds of things that keep us going and keep us so motivated to continue to build on this program and keep it moving forward.

RM: Have you been able to operate your programs with COVID-19 this year?

BS: That’s the million dollar question! We have. There has been a lot of start and stop, of course. One thing we have noticed is that all of the communities and schools that we were working with prior to COVID have indicated they want the programs back and it’s just a matter of time for some of them. For example, we had requests from communities in Northern BC as early as last June because all programming had been stopped as of mid-March, but there was such a desire to see kids back outside and in some kind of programming. We worked with the communities to define all the safety and health protocols we needed to get programs safely running again, and we were able to do that through the summer and fall in many of our communities.

RM: This Rogers All IN program, when you boil it down, it’s essentially free advertising on a national stage to really share your story. Do you have any thoughts on how you’re going to use that platform?

BS: Yeah, we do. I think the most exciting opportunity for us has come in the form of just being able to spread the word and raise awareness of Spirit North. One of the most common comments we still get is “we’ve never heard of you.” Even though we’re reaching over 6,000 kids annually, we still remain a relatively young organization who have a long way to go in terms of building awareness. This is really exciting in terms of raising the profile of the organization and then just building on those networks that will come as a result. Of course, the obvious goal being our ability to reach and engage more kids.

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