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Before the YWCA Regina Kikakihtânaw Centre can help women and children, it needs help from the community.
Kikakihtânaw was named in a ceremony by the YWCA’s knowledge keeper Nina Wilson. It means ‘we all succeed.’
Planning for the new centre started in 2017. Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen, CEO of the Regina YWCA, said the building was fully funded in 2022, but the pandemic resulted in higher costs.
“Our building was fully funded a few years ago at $54 million,” she said.
“It was celebrated here on site with a garden party. Since then, escalation and inflation has escalated the cost to $70 million. We currently are short $4.5 million.”
The YWCA made up most of the $16 million shortfall through individual donors, corporate supporters and help from the City of Regina.
Melissa Coomber-Bendtsen, CEO of the YWCA (L), says the new facility was fully funded in 2022. But due to post-pandemic inflation, the $54 million price tag rose to $70 million. June 28, 2022 (Lisa Schick/980 CJME)
Construction on the new building is about 85 percent complete, and the YWCA is expecting to be out of its old building on McIntyre Street and into the new facility by the beginning of November.
But that means the YWCA has less than eight weeks to reach its goal.
“On top of government funding, the YWCA has raised over $18 million in the community,” Coomber-Bendtsen said. “So we’ve seen a huge amount of support. People really believe in this project, see its value and potential to really change generations of families in our community, so we are confident that the community will come out and help us get over that finish line.”
Coomber-Bendtsen said the public fundraising campaign has been launched, and she encouraged everyone to get involved.
“We have a beautiful website called hereforher.ca,” she explained. “It has a fly-through of the entire building. There are numerous ways and opportunities to be part of this project to be here for her, and here for her family. So I just really encourage people to take a peek at it, to make a donation, to tell their friends about it, share it on social media, and help get us through to the end of this project.”
The building has been made with people who have faced significant trauma in mind. Coomber-Bendtsen explained that it was designed to de-institutionalize the services women often seek.
“There are very fascinating and interesting aspects of it that are trauma-informed that make it feel like home, that make it feel cozy and less as an institutional response,” she said.
“The entire building is about preventing people from needing shelter in the first place. We’ve turned away over 4,000 women and children from our shelters consistently for the last five years. We know if we don’t do things differently, we will just continue to add more shelter beds and have more women and children needing them and more people on our waitlist.”
Children are a key component of the new YWCA building. Lower sinks and windows have been installed with little ones in mind. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)
She added that incorporating the community is a key part of the new facility.
“When the community that is not in the midst of crisis interacts and builds relationships with those that are in crisis, that sense of hope and being part of something bigger is life-changing,” she said. “There is lots of community space here. We have a coffee shop as a social enterprise, there’s multi-purpose space, there’s a playground for the community to use, so it’s very much a public building as well. We feel like that’s going to be an essential thing to stopping the cycle of shelters.”
The new facility will offer many services to those in need.
Cubbies for children at the new YWCA in Regina. (Nicole Garn/980 CJME)
“The Kikakihtânaw Centre will house the YWCA Regina, our domestic violence shelter, our homeless shelter for women and children, as well as 72 transitional, affordable second-stage housing units,” Coomber-Bendtsen said.
“It will also house our outreach centre and our community programs. This includes a youth hub that will have a general practitioner physician on site in partnership with The Nest. It will also have mental health counsellors and drop-in programs for youth aged 14 to 24. The space will also house mobile crisis in the city and two childcare centres, so 180 childcare spaces as well. As an act of reconciliation, the YWCA built a healing and sweat lodge in partnership with All Nations Hope Network, providing Indigenous healing, medicines and elders to the community.”
The YWCA will be prepared to open for child care services on September 3. Women seeking aid can visit the new building starting October 3.