At the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre in Halifax, the heat and the air conditioning systems are broken, water is dripping down the roofs and mice are walking behind the walls.

For 15 years, members of the community have been lobbying to get a new friendship centre, and it’s finally happening.

According to an analysis of Statistics Canada’s latest Census that tracts maternal languages, there are 75 aboriginal-language speakers in Halifax, just like five years ago during the 2011 census.

Despite the few people speaking an Aboriginal language in Halifax, there are more than 33,000 people who identified as Aboriginal during the latest Census about population released in 2011.

Glode-Desrochers says there are currently around 12,000 Indigenous people in the city, but most of them don’t speak the language or don’t take part in census. “A lot of us don’t want to disclose our full identity,” she says.

On Tuesday August 8, the Mi’kmaw community centre invited everyone and anyone to speak up about their vision and hopes for their new place.

Executive director Pam Glode-Desrochers says the drawings represent what the community wishes the building will look like. Source: Facebook page of the Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre.

The community centre is the hub where they meet, pray, cook and learn about their own culture. The need to have a new and bigger place is what brought more than 50 people together on Tuesday to share their ideas for the new centre.

Despite the few people who speak an Aboriginal language, the centre helps an infinite amount of people.

“The centre has saved my life and probably saved other peoples’ lives,” says Florence Blackett who has been involved in the centre since she was four years old. “My daughter was raped and I lost my mind and it’s through the support of the centre that I was able to go through the darkest period of my life.”

Blackett and three children.

The centre offers a diversity of programs from cooking classes to mental health counselling.

Florence Blackett, who has been involved with Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre since she was four year old says finally moving location will be like moving an entire family.

Pam Glode-Desrochers, executive director of the centre says, “people who have been here know that there are times when you come in this building and it’s -60 degrees in here and it’s -20 degrees outside, but the staff will still continue to work with their coats and mittens on.”

The centre opened its doors on September 17, 1973. It has been at the same location on Gottingen Street for more than 20 years, in a building that is quickly deteriorating. “I believe that the community has a right to walk into a building that is safe, secure and can deliver what their needs are,” says Glode-Desrochers.

Six years ago, the Mi’kmaw centre had eight programs for its members. The centre evolved over the past years and now offers 28 programs, which are serving more than 5,000 people, compared to 1,600 people in 2000.

“I’m only supposed to allow 200 people in here, says Glode-Desrochers. We are totally out of place in this old building.”

It is still unclear where and when the new centre will open, even how it will be funded, but members of the community say they are on the right track and stay optimistic.

Rag Manzer, a Dalhousie University graduate student and registered nurse who attended the open session, says he just recently learned about his Indigenous identity that was kept secret by his British family for years.

Reg Manzer speaks about his wishes with the community centre. 
  Manzer recently learned that he has Native ancestors. It was his first time at the centre on Tuesday August 8, 2017.