KAMLOOPS — A Williams Lake woman is among 13 recipients of the 2018 Indspire Awards.
The annual awards recognize the successes and contributions of Indigenous people.
Cecilia DeRose will be receiving the Culture, Heritage and Spirituality Award for her efforts in teaching the language and cultural traditions of the Secwepemc people.
On Thursday DeRose spoke to students at Kay Bingham Elementary, telling them of past struggles, and the honour of receiving the prestigious award.
“I thought it was one of those little prank calls or whatever on the telephone,” DeRose told the students as she recounted her initial conversation with the president of Indspire.
DeRose has dedicated her adult life to teaching language and culture.
“It wasn’t the thing to do before, they didn’t want us to be Indians, they wanted to make white men out of us, which wasn’t natural.”
DeRose was a student at St. Joseph’s Mission, a residential school in Williams Lake. There she was forced to speak only English.
“We didn’t understand English at all when we entered so it was hard to understand,” DeRose said. “The nuns, of course, were French nuns that spoke French, so we wondered how come we couldn’t speak Shuswap when they could openly speak Fench?”
In the 1980s DeRose began teaching her native language in schools in Williams Lake. Through that work she has been able to provide the kind of education she was denied in her youth.
“They stripped us of everthing,” DeRose said. “We weren’t allowed to practice our beliefs or our culture. Now it’s coming back, and the young ones are getting into it, which is really good. It’s nice to see.”
On Tuesday DeRose was in Ottawa for the announcement of the Indspire Award recipients, and will receive the award at a ceremony in Winnipeg in March.
However, the real reward for DeRose is knowing that future generations will be free to speak the language and embrace the culture of their ancestors.
“It took 150 years, and our young Prime Minister is finally opening hearts with the other nations that we are people. We are the First Nations people. We finally are going to be accepted in the world.”
