Indigenous face mask company starts making kokum scarves in support of Ukraine
CBC
An idea to help people access face masks in remote First Nations communities is now evolving to show support for Ukraine.
About a year and half ago, Tyson Wesley of Kachechewan First Nation, started a company called Indigenous Face Masks.
"We originally started off with a goal of 600, to give 200 masks to Fort Albany, 200 to Kashechewan and 200 to Attawapiskat," he said.
"We got big and we started to get more people interested."
The company has sold more than 45,000 masks during the pandemic and has donated another 45,000 masks to different Indigenous communities across the country.
Now, the company is starting to make kokum scarves, which feature a traditional floral design.
Wesley said the scarves stem back when people from Ukraine immigrated to Canada in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Many people from Ukraine settled in the Prairies and developed relationships with local Indigenous people.
Ukraine is currently under attack by Russia. The foreign ministers from Ukraine and Russia have engaged in peace talks, but no deal was reached. The two sides have agreed to keep talks going.
Precise death tolls are impossible to verify but the United Nations' human rights office said earlier this week that it has verified 1,207 civilian casualties, including 406 killed and 801 injured. But that true number is likely much higher.
Wesley said considering the current situation in Ukraine, they decided to start making kokum scarves.
"We want to acknowledge the connection and we wanted to see where we could help out," he said.
"Instead of face masks, we put scarves on our website and started selling them."
Wesley said so far, he's sold 12,000 scarves, raising more than $6,300 for the Red Cross.
"It's our way of being part of the effort to support Ukraine," he said.
More Alberta seniors are now eligible for a provincially funded RSV vaccine.
More than 100 workers at a steel plant in eastern Ontario are being laid off either temporarily or permanently, as a company with facilities in Quebec and Ontario cuts its workforce due to challenging market conditions — including U.S. tariffs.
A small town northwest of Thunder Bay, Ont., has become the unlikely home for hundreds of foreign workers, but many may have to leave the community they've embraced after the end of a federal program put in place to fill gaps in Canada's labour market.
There's mixed reaction in Waterloo to an injuction allowing police to detain, arrest and charge anyone who is participating in unsanctioned street parties in that city this weekend.
Diabetes Canada is excited about Prince Edward Island's new pharmacare deal with the federal government, but hopes the province will reevaluate copays on diabetes supplies, says a senior manager with the organization.
After 26 years of accommodating guests from across the world, Faith Embleton says she and her husband Ken are ready to sell their bed and breakfast.
A group of big-name companies including Google, Meta and Dow have signed a pledge to support tripling the world's nuclear energy capacity by 2050, a signal of the technology's growing resurgence in popularity.
Five years on, Toronto-area doctors and public health officials are looking back at what they've learned since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic — and most agree the early experience will prove useful if the city faces another infectious disease crisis.
City staff would like Londoners to take a good look around their home and ask themselves a direct and possibly difficult question: Could everyone in your family survive at home, without leaving and with no other help, for a full 72 hours?
Liberal Leader Mark Carney will officially become Canada's next prime minister within a few hours, taking the reins as the country barrels toward a general election and continues to fend off verbal and economic attacks from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Recent cyberattacks in Newfoundland and Labrador should have been a wake up call for the federal government about the reality of an increasingly hostile world, says one cybersecurity expert.
A recent CBC News analysis found that Nova Scotia is rapidly losing some of its most affordable apartments, but housing experts say there are ways to prevent that.
Premier Susan Holt is defending her decision to not use electricity exports to Maine as leverage against U.S. tariffs, arguing the move might cause long-term pain for New Brunswickers.