Lillian Pete was disappointed last week.
She had just received a phone call that there was no funding available for her and her daughter Mavis Dennis to attend the Little People of B.C. AGM in Victoria, a convention they’ve had to skip the last couple of years due to lack of funding, she said.
Mavis, 13, was born with achodorplasia and is the first First Nation that the Little People of B.C. know of that was born with a form of dwarfism. It’s important that her story is told at this AGM, Pete says, and by going to these conventions she gets to meet others like her as well.
“That’s the reason I wanted her to go so she can meet others,” Pete said. “She’s a teenager now.”
The pill is all the more tough to swallow as they’ll be in Vancouver just two days before the conference begins on May 21 — it’s the ferry ride over that they can’t get funds for, or accommodations.
The Dze L K’ant Friendship Centre was searching for funds, but as of Friday things were looking pretty grim. It seems she’ll be missing the AGM again.
“We’ve been all over, all through town and a few places and with no results,” Pete said. “I keep running into roadblocks, into walls, I feel I have nowhere to turn.”
Funding should be there for this type of thing, Pete says, not just for Mavis but for others as well. The fact that there’s not is sort of baffling, Pete said.