Media.Knet.Ca

Posted in The Barrie Examiner and the Peterborough Examiner

"Canada's First Nations peoples must be seen as human beings" / "Only our abuse is denied"

BUD WHITEYE - Editorial - July 20, 2007 @ 07:00

In August, Indian residential school victims will become eligible to apply for a "common experience" payout resulting from a class action lawsuit launched about 10 years ago. In the lawsuit, victims are to receive $10,000 for the first year they spent in the away-from-home schools and another $3,000 for each other year spent there.

Last week, the Roman Catholic Church in and around Los Angeles settled a lawsuit worth $660 million as a result of priests molesting church members when they were children. I searched, but I could not find one letter to an editor against that settlement. Indeed, there are letters that say how horrible those actions are by their moral leaders.

On the other hand, I have read letter after letter railing against the settlement with the native Indians in Canada. Letters that say much of what the Canadian residential schools' victims complain about is made up to get money from the government. In fact, I gave a talk early in 2003 where one of the white ladies in attendance said to another that what I said never happened, but that I made up everything I just shared that morning just before we sat down to share in a lunch.

How could she break bread with me, yet hate me so much as to say I could make up such a horror story and try to saddle her with the punitive costs? This lady never raised her hand to ask questions when I mentioned I would take them. All on her own, she made it her duty to put people "straight." How many others like her are out there?

In Los Angeles, the number of victims ended up being around 500. Their settlement would give them about $1,200,000 each; the lawsuit against the Christian Brothers of Newfoundland's Mt Cashel Orphanage settled out-of-court for $11.5 million, giving the 40 victims who filed about $287,000 each.

The First Nations victims have to settle for, on average, $20,000; 14 times less what the Christian Brothers victims are entitled, or any chance at compensation will be lost forever.

So many, many non-natives, including some very close friends of mine, have said no amount of money will take away the hurt caused by the despicable, filthy acts of those in charge at the many residential schools for Indian children across Canada. But we will never be seen as victims of anything until we are first seen as human beings. That day has not yet arrived.

Had we been seen as humans, we would not be in this situation. Today, people are complaining about paying out a mere $20,000 for animalistic acts against humanity, and the First Nations fighting for a semblance of justice as victims of those acts.

The possibility for the two of us (native and non-native) to see things from totally different perspectives - by being raised so differently - is not considered by those making condescending remarks.

Many, if not all, Indian children do not have the generation after generation of parents, grandparents and on back for 150 years of being doctors, lawyers, farmers, labourers or fishermen and such. In fact, until recently, the Indian children legacy was largely kids of kids who attended one residential school or another. The only job trail offered up was part-time farm worker, the rest were muskrat hunting and selling homemade baskets by the roadside.

Shortly after the residential schools closed, the job-hunting Indian youth couldn't even mention his background, hoping that part would be overlooked, but his "tan" gave him/her away. And, one of the great Canadian ironies of all time is that the "Indian" was removed from his home to make him a better person; more educated, more civilized. Yet, who knows anybody who has applied for a job where the mere mention of "residential school" got you that job.

But, to get rid of most of this animosity displayed in letters to editors and op-ed pieces, the First Nations must be seen as humans, not something less or far different.

Bud Whiteye is a member of the Walpole Island First Nation and is a communications consultant for the Heritage Centre at Walpole Island. Comments can be sent to writersgroup@ospreymedia.ca

On Friday evening, Lac Seul community members gathered in the Frenchman's Head community centre for a night of feasting, laughing, dancing and sharing with the board members from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

Garnet Angeconeb, a Lac Seul member and AHF board member, worked with the team from Lac Seul's Biiwaseya Healing Project to invite the healing foundation board to host their meeting in the Lac Seul traditional territory. The Friday evening celebration concluded their three day visit to the area.

The Biiwaasaya Healing Project is an innovative Lac Seul multi-year residential school healing project that has been operating since 2004 with funding support from the Aboriginal Healing Foundation.

AHF also funded Northern Nishnawbe Education Council for the construction of a memorial garden and gathering space for the survivers and their families at the site of the former Pelican Falls Residential School.

From the Toronto Star ...

Balancing the wheel of life
Christine Graef - Jul 22, 2007
 
In seeking good health, be mindful of the lessons of the moose, experience of native people suggests

OTTAWA – When loss of habitat resulted in a decline in the moose population in the Opasquayak Cree Nation in Manitoba, hunters were unable to provide for their families. They went on welfare and began drinking. The women no longer had the work of preparing meat or hides. Sons no longer had pride in going out with the men. Rates of abuse, crime and diabetes went up.

The government poured money into diabetes prevention programs – toward monitoring symptoms and glucose in the blood. The rates of diabetes and of crime continued to rise.

"But as we watched the moose population go up after a moose management program was instituted in 1975, we saw the diabetes and abuse go down," said Henry Lickers, a Seneca Indian, Turtle Clan, and director of the Department of Environment for the Mohawk Council of Akwesasne. "There's now about 1,250 moose. Men are out on the land. Sons and daughters have duties. Even the worst hunter in the community can bring home a moose."

Biologists had measured the moose population. Health Canada had measured the diabetes. But no one had thought of the two as interlinking components of the community's health. When the Mohawk department of environment partnered with the University of Ottawa's Institute of Environment and several First Nation communities to take a new look at the problems, the result was a community health indicator study, launched in 2000.

"When we went to the elders, we were told that `we do not need non-natives to study us and tell us we're not healthy. We know that,' " said Lickers. "They asked, 'who among you studies life?' "

Western culture tells people what is wrong with them by measuring descriptors such as disease, suicide and death, but not causes. It brings no hope, Lickers said.

The Circle of Health Indicator on this page is divided vertically. The right half of the wheel represents the spiritual side. The left side represents the corporal/physical world.

The circle is then divided in half horizontally. The upper half represents the intellectual aspect of the community. The lower half represents the visceral aspects.

In the centre is "Health." The segments around the circle are divided into eight opposite life indexes that balance each other: Environment/Morale; Economics/Values; Religion/Spirituality; Politics/Responsibility.

For the Cree Nation, Economy represented the number of moose and Value represented the number of successful hunters. Today, all because the moose are present, the community today has its own school, water treatment plants and a hotel. Energy once spent on bureaucratic issues has shifted toward youth programs.

"When we asked communities what we could measure in their community to indicate health, not one ever said death or illness," said Lickers.

A Davis Inlet community said a well-lit recreational centre was a component for their health. Environment, the amount of bright sunlight, was balanced with Morale, the community gatherings of picnics.

IN THE MIAWPUKEK First Nation in Newfoundland, playing drums equalled spirituality and having drums equalled religion.

"So they counted the number of drums and found there were more than 100, but no one was playing them," said Lickers. "The link between spiritual and religion was broken."

The community began singing and invited others to join them. They were again working together and motivated.

"The indictor has to give hope," said Lickers. "It has to give something that the people can do."

Lickers and George Haas, a research associate at the Institute for Environmental Research, began working on the health indicator study because of the impact of pollution in Akwesasne.

Akwesasne spans the St. Lawrence River where Quebec, Ontario and New York State meet. In 1957 the St. Lawrence Seaway was completed. On its shores, the Reynolds Metals Company emitted thousands of pounds of fluoride that settled on the lands, crops, animals, water and people in surrounding communities. Tons of PCBs were dumped into the river.

In the 1970s, people of Cornwall Island began to study the effects. But in 1985, health studies done with Health Canada and others concluded there was no link between the pollution in the river and the community's declining health.

"But diabetes was found in 75 per cent of adults," said Lickers. "The people had stopped eating fish, a high-protein diet."

As the Mohawk department of environment studied the river, they watched the impact on the people. Because of the warnings about toxic fish, fishermen were laying down their nets and turning toward new income found in border smuggling.

By 1990 there were also five casinos, causing splits in the community as some supported the gaming and others fought against it. In the summer of 1990, an army was sent in to quell a violent outbreak.

The governments were doing the same thing over and over again expecting to get a different result, Lickers said. Haas and Lickers sat down and asked how could they break the insanity.

"In the past, a doctor was the single extender of health into a community," said Lickers. "Then public health came in and doctors worked with doctors. Then there was a need for a team surrounding a doctor, such as nurses and midwives. Why do you believe health is from one doctor? It takes sociologists, psychologists, environmentalists, all the fields working together with communities to have health."

A community knows what is important to it, said Haas.

"Native communities were being told that diet and exercise would fix everything," said Haas. "That's offensive. It fixed nothing."

Haas said that when they asked the community about its health, the people said that pollution, high population density and men working isolated outside of their communities were major stressors.

"We structured a research model that was designed by the community and found exactly what they said – the high pollution, population density and working outside the community were all factors where we found diabetes," said Haas. "The way they look at it is different from the western components of diabetes."

The way many aboriginal people look at the world is as circles within circles.

"In the smallest circle that we can look at as an example is a sub-cell," said Lickers. "Then at an individual. Then a family or group. Then community. Then nation. Then nation within a Confederacy. Then in the spiritual realm around us. So when we say diabetes, we see it as a whole. We don't just treat the individual. We treat the family too, as, for example, encouraging gardening. Family is in community, so we look at that too."

IN THE EVENTS that arose in Akwesasne after the river was polluted, the sub-cellular level was the fish. Then the individuals, the fishermen, took the consequences.

"Then the family lost that income and had to look for another income," said Lickers.

"Then community respect of trade between fishermen and farmers was lost and politics changed. Then the nation approaches the issue.

"The Confederacy is now impacted. Canada and United States call in the police, call in the army and spend billions of dollars since 1990."

The cause of the uprising and the diabetes at Akwesasne was not economics, he said.

The cause was PCBs in the river.

"Between 1990 and the present, Canada has spent about $2.5 billion on policing Akwesasne," said Lickers.

"A fraction of that money could instead have cleaned the river and sustained community health."

Dr. Terry Anderson, Professor and Canada Research Chair in Distance Education at Athabasca University, spent some time this past week meeting with Keewaytinook Okimakanak staff at the K-Net office in Sioux Lookout and the KORI office in Thunder Bay.

Dr. Anderson is working with the KO team to complete an evaluation of the Keewaytinook Internet High School (http://kihs.knet.ca). The evaluation team is lead by Brian Walmark, KORI Coordinator. It is supported by KIHS (Darrin Potter, KIHS Principal) and Freda Kenny (KIHS Vice-principal) and K-Net staff (Brian Beaton, K-Net Coordinator and Penny Carpenter, K-Net Business Manager).

For more information about Dr. Terry Anderson, visit his homepage at http://www.athabascau.ca/html/staff/academic/terrya.html

From Timmins Press ...

Company launches Cree language website
Scott Paradis - July 19, 2007

A Cree organization has officially launched a version of its website in its native tongue.

Five Nations Energy Inc. has launched the Cree-language version of its website, which will run alongside its English version. The electricity transmission company is Ontario's only Aboriginally-owned company of its kind and it has had an English website available since 2000.

Making a Cree-language site available was vital for the company to more comfortably serve some of its customer base, a company official said.

"Many of our community members use Cree as their first language," said Mike Metatawabin, president of Five Nations Energy Inc.

"We translate our First Nation Energy Inc. newsletter into Cree and it was important for us to make the website available in Cree, as well. "We are always looking for new ways to get information out and improve communications with the communities and this new website is a result of that ongoing effort."

Metatawabin said the website, both the English and Cree versions, contains all important, up-to-date information regarding the company, its operations, as well as information about the First Nations communities it serves.

Some of those Northern communities include Fort Albany, Attawapiskat and Kashechewan

The project of translating the English web content into Cree was a first for Stephanie Hajer, communications advisor.

"It was a long, ongoing project," she said.

Metatawabin acted as the translator as the Cree-version of the website was assembled.

Because the project had a single translator the content from the English site became "bottle-necked."

But eventually the group was able to work through its challenges to get the site up and running.

There still is, however, a slight difference in the speed at which the two versions of the site are updated, Hajer said.

"Sometimes the translator gets busy," said Hajer.

"We don't want to hold our English (content) back."

Updating the Cree version of the website continues to get easier. Hajer said she has also become more comfortable with the language since she started the project.

Hajer had no prior experience with Cree nor the syllabics that make up the language.

Wasaya Group Inc is sponsoring a Free Concert in Sioux Lookout featuring the music of "SAGATAY".  Everyone is welcome!!!

This free concert featuring First Nations recording artists "SAGATAY" will be held at the Legion Hall  on Wednesday July 25, 2007 from 7:00 - 10:00 pm.

This event will kick off a series of fundraising events to purchase a CT Scanner  Unit for the new Sioux Lookout Menoyawin Health Centre in memory of the late Grace Teskey.  Wasaya kick-started the $2 million CT scanner fund by contributing $505,000 on April 3, 2007.  SLMHC will make a brief presntation on the CT unit during the concert.  The public is invited to attend and show their support.

There will be a free draw for a trip for two donated by Wasaya Airways.

See you there!

(Need additional info? Eric @807-628-7454) or email ekudaka@wasaya.com

www.wasaya.com

Announcing another important upcoming event ...

Digital Storytelling grassroots online videoconference

A Public Multi-Site Videoconference Meeting

Tuesday, July 24 10am Pacific, noon Central, 1pm Eastern, 2pm Atlantic

About the Event:

This meeting is open to anyone interested in making videos from a grassroots community perspective and sharing them online. We will discuss how we can promote and support digital storytelling and online video in First Nation communities and what will be necessary to support the production of more online videos.

For more information or to join:

Contact Lyle Johnson at 1-877-737-KNET (5638) ext 1387.

For more information on this topic please please visit http://videocom.knet.ca

Click here to view the poster for this event.  Feel free to pass this along to anybody that you may find to be interested in this topic.

FAAY announcement ...

FOUNDATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF ABORIGINAL YOUTH (FAAY) SCHOLARSHIP AND BURSARY PROGRAM

The Foundation for the Advancement of Aboriginal Youth (FAAY) Scholarships and Bursaries are now available for 2007/2008. Information and application forms can be found online at

http://www.ccab.com/faay/ or call 1-866-566-FAAY

FAAY is an initiative of the Canadian Council of Aboriginal Business. Since 1994, CCAB has helped distribute nearly $2 million to 1260 students in every province and territory. Last year, they distributed more than $300,000 to 131 deserving Aboriginal scholars.

High School Student?

Any Aboriginal student heading into grade 9 or higher at a Canadian high school can apply for a bursary.

University or College Student?

Aboriginal students studying full-time at an accredited post-secondary institution in Canada can apply for a scholarship.

Deadline for application is October 12, 2007.

Evan Jones
Urban Aboriginal Strategy
BC Office of the Federal Interlocutor
Office: 604-666-7931

The foundation of every nation is the education of its youth

Marlene Erickson,Coordinator First Nations Education Support Services
(FNESS)
Phone: 250-562-2131 (Ext 460) or 1-800-371-8111

SLARC press release ...

SLARC Youth Centre announces Sports Nights (2007-2008)

Sioux Lookout (July 17, 2007) – The Sioux Lookout Anti-Racism Committee announced today that it is hosting sports nights for youth ages 11 to 18, commencing next Tuesday, July 24, 2007.

Supported by a Safer and Vital Communities Grant, SLARC Sports Night will take place Tuesdays at the Sioux Lookout Recreation Centre in the gym from 7-9pm. Weather permitting, some evenings will be hosted outdoors at various locations for different activities. Activities are free to the youth of the community and include floor hockey, badminton, soccer, volleyball, basketball, baseball and frisbee-golf. Once a month the youth will organize a tournament with the sponsorship of local businesses and community organizations and with the involvement of the local police. 

“This is a great opportunity to enhance the programs at the Youth Centre,” said Youth Empowerment Coordinator, Daniel Fraser. “This grant enables us to provide a safe environment for youth to interact positively with each other and with adults.”

In the first tournament, coming up August 14th, youth will challenge the SLARC board. “The board better start practicing now, the youth are sure to be a challenge” said Amy McDonald, a SLARC summer student who is helping to organize the Sports Nights.

The Safer and Vital Communities Grant is offered through the Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional Services (http://www.mcscs.jus.gov.on.ca/). It encourages communities, business and government to work together, forge new alliances and build safer, healthier communities in which to live. This partnership approach provides an opportunity to build an increased sense of belonging and community spirit across Ontario.

The Sioux Lookout Anti-Racism Committee was established in 1988 as a means of promoting cooperation and understanding within Sioux Lookout.  SLARC is dedicated to helping all residents and visitors to our community learn to work and live together while respecting and celebrating our differences. The goal is to develop a just community where the future will be better for us all.

For further information, please contact:

Daniel Fraser, Youth Empowerment Coordinator (807) 737 0161
Amy McDonald – SLARC Summer Student (807) 737 1501

Press release from Ontario government ...

Nutrition Information Phone Line Connects Ontarians To Registered Dietitians

TORONTO, July 18 /CNW/ - The McGuinty government is continuing to improve the health of all Ontarians by launching the free EatRight Ontario telephone information service that provides healthy eating and nutrition advice.

"Credible information on nutrition and healthy eating is key to good health. That's why we've created the EatRight Ontario telephone service - to provide Ontarians with a new free resource that connects them directly with qualified individuals who can discuss healthy food choices and explain diet-related health risk factors," said Health Promotion Minister Jim Watson.

The toll-free EatRight Ontario telephone service enables individuals to ask Registered Dietitians nutrition questions by calling 1-877-510-510-2 or visiting www.ontario.ca/eatright.

The EatRight Ontario team of Registered Dietitians is available by phone Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. EST. The service is available in over 120 languages including Mandarin, Korean; Polish; German; Spanish, Ukrainian; Punjabi; Hungarian; Portuguese; Italian; Arabic.

The call centre was developed in partnership with the Dietitians of Canada, to help Ontario families become better informed about healthy food choices, especially in rural areas where Registered Dietitians are not easily accessible.

"Dietitians of Canada is pleased to have a key role in making this service a reality," said Helen Haresign, VP Development for Dietitians of Canada. "We know that the public is interested in nutrition and trusts the nutrition advice from Registered Dietitians. EatRight Ontario gives Ontarians better access to an authoritative information source that can help guide their daily food choices."

The www.ontario.ca/eatright website offers articles on nutrition, including healthy weights, family and seniors' nutrition and disease prevention, tips on packing healthy lunches and food labeling, and links to valuable resources within Ontario's health network.