MNO at Forefront in Guatemala
OTTAWA, Feb. 22 – Métis Nation of Ontario President, Tony Belcourt will be leaving for Guatemala this weekend to visit Mayan communities to discuss fundraising for schools in isolated villages. He will attend a meeting with Indigenous people from throughout the Americas to discuss use and access to technology for health, education, governance and commerce. And he will work on plans for purchasing textiles from Mayan women to feed their children. These are activities that are bringing the MNO and its people to the forefront in Guatemala in the coming weeks and months. Next week he will be joined by Métis National Council President, Clément Chartier and National Congress of American Indians President, Joe Garcia. President Belcourt and his partner, Danielle, have been making private visits annually to Guatemala for years. They’ve struck up a friendship with many people there and have been helping to fund a better education and family life for a young girl and her mother. They have also learned a great dealabout the struggles of the Q’eqchi Maya in the Alta Verapaz Region where people are living in conditions identical to the feudal system of the middle ages. Many citizens of the Métis Nation have heard about these struggles over the years and have responded, in the past, to calls for assistance in the aftermath of Hurricane Mitch and the mud-slides following Hurricane Stan. MNO Registrar Karole Dumont Beckett has championed a new fundraising campaign to assist in the building of schools in isolated villages and to assist children to be able to attend schools.
For further information on the visits to Guatemala, and more details on the issues at hand, please visit the International News section of the MNO website at www.metisnation.org
The Métis are a distinct Aboriginal people with a unique culture, language and heritage, and with an ancestral Homeland that centres around Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, British Columbia, parts of the Northwest Territories, as well as the northwestern United States. The Métis played an instrumental role in the shaping of Canada, and work tirelessly to share their culture, music, traditions and knowledge of the environment with their fellow Canadians. Today, the Métis live, work, raise their families and pay taxes in communities all across Canada.
For further information: Avery Hargreaves, Communications Assistant, Work: (613) 798-1488, Ext. 108 Cell: (613) 294-1148, averyh@metisnation.org
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