A “change in command” is complete at a healing lodge in southeast Saskatchewan after a symbolic event on Thursday.
The Correctional Service of Canada (CSC) held the ceremony to acknowledge the outgoing and incoming Kikawinaw at the Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge on the Nakaneet First Nation near Maple Creek. The word Kikawinaw is translated to “mother” in the Cree language and is the executive director’s title at the lodge.
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The ceremony is “in many ways … a symbolic event,” according to Don Head, a CSC commissioner who presided over the event. However he added that “for the newly appointed leader, it represents their pledge to ensure that every decision they make respects CSC’s mission, the rule of law and the rights of staff and inmates.”
“Every change in leadership brings new thinking and new opportunities for growth and I am very pleased to be here to help to commemorate this event,” Head said in a statement.
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Incoming Kikawinaw Rachel Parker is taking over the position from Lee Anne Skene. In a media release, the CSC said the ceremony emphasizes the Kikawinaw’s responsibilities as a leader and “represents the symbolic passing of responsibility, authority, and accountability from one correctional leader to another.”
The Okimaw Ohci Healing Lodge is an institution for aboriginal female offenders that opened in 1995.