Our team was invited to visit and celebrate with community members, WAHA Senior Leadership, and the Redevelopment Team in the Oshki Kiskinowacihtawin Ceremony to mark new beginnings and to break ground on the new state-of-the-art Health Campus in Moosonee and Ambulatory Care Center in Moose Factory.
Our team was delighted to seize this opportunity to get acquainted with the Community leadership and to come together to celebrate this great new adventure. They visited both sites as we continue to work through the Development phase of the project.
During the Oshki Kiskinowacihtawin Ceremony, the elders of the community blessed the land and offered prayers for the community. Early in the morning, a sunrise ceremony was also held to welcome the beginning of a new day and express appreciation and thanks.
This event is not simply a celebration, but another important step in our team’s collaborative efforts with the community to ensure we create strong partnerships that will foster community participation and involvement throughout all stages of the Project. This will ensure the design and construction phases will be a collaborative process right from the start.
Following the Ceremony, on January 27th our team facilitated a Common Ground workshop to further reinforce this approach. The purpose of this half-day workshop was to start the journey in establishing trust, dialogue and galvanizing engagement. It was about identifying shared interests that will keep everyone focused on the same goals by allowing initial stakeholder concerns to emerge at the outset of the project and providing an opportunity to consider mitigation strategies to prevent unnecessary delays and disappointments and to avoid misaligned interests. We want to have discussions and conversations and hear from diverse voices around shared interests, purpose, and values. Common Ground provides an opportunity to establish key criteria for evaluating project success and taking the required steps to build trust and create the relationships that will ultimately get us there.
This is a one-of-a-kind springboard project to connect with Indigenous partners and communities which we are eager to work with. Not only are we building a health facility here, but we are also writing a new page of our relationship with Indigenous peoples of Northern Ontario.