SGI Canada and YWCA Regina have a new partnership that will go towards funding the organization’s new Kikakihtânaw Centre for Women and Families. The agreement is worth $2 million and will help fund the healing lodge at the new site. This donation is a transformational piece that will help us ensure that the sacred site and the healing lodge are able to be a space where so much programming, so many people can come and meet with elders, can learn, have access to ceremony,” said YWCA Regina’s CEO Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen. “It also acts as a way for the rest of the community to understand and learn around treaties, around Indigenous ways of knowing and being.” The contribution from SGI Canada will be made in three installments to support operational and programming costs. The healing lodge will be a year-round sweat lodge with a ceremony space, feast kitchen, counselling rooms and more. Construction costs for the new building were set at $70 million. The YWCA said they still need to raise $2 million. “Our communities really stepped up in the last little bit to help us narrow that gap. We are still actively working on our campaign and are about to launch a public phase of that through a mail out campaign,” Coomber-Bendtsen said. The new site is expected to open to the public in November.
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