Spirituality

Balancing Strategies is an interactive, flexible, and holistic program that utilizes culturally-relevant curriculum to support and guide the career success of Indigenous students at UVic. While the number of Indigenous students at UVic is steadily increasing, many local Indigenous communities are voicing concern that their graduates are facing significant barriers accessing employment despite their level of education. This is largely because many of the conventional career development options geared towards post-secondary students rely on models and approaches that defy the configurations of Indigenous students' lives. Mainstream career/life exploration options often rely on a Euro-Western worldview that doesn't take into account the full spectrum of responsibilities in Indigenous students lives. Many of the counseling techniques used by mainstream counselors who work with Indigenous students are culturally encapsulated. Additionally, the curriculums and pedagogical approaches used in conventional career development models are in many ways culturally-irrelevant and may be inconsistent with the realities of Indigenous students' needs and lived experiences. This is largely because, as scholars such as Axelson (1993) have observed, most career development models are based on generalizations of "middle-class and white male populations" (p. 41).

In the aim of providing comprehensive and culturally-relevant support for Indigenous students throughout their academic journeys, Balancing Strategies will offer career/life exploration and transition options in a flexible, self-directed, and cyclical format. Specifically, the program will provide a series of creative career exploration options that provide insight into students' strengths, aspirations and abilities to incorporate into their career goals. The intent is to facilitate the strengthening of students' self-awareness and confidence to identify personal talents that are transferable to future life or employment goals. It is our hope that activities which encourage students to tell their story and relate life experiences to one another will facilitate this process. Art making, cultural activities and traditional teachings around meaning and visioning self and career journeys will also be incorporated into the program curriculum. Additionally, the program will connect students with relevant resources to support their career goals and objectives (resume and cover letter writing help, professional development workshops, Indigenous internship programs, career & coop services).

Balancing Strategies will be implemented following a creative, dynamic approach which meet students where they are engaged in life. It will be a holistic and interactive program that encourages students to involve their families and cultural communities in setting life and career goals.

Rather than a linear action plan, the cyclical format emphasizes the continuing nature of life's journey. Students can engage in the program well before they leave post-secondary. They don't need to have specific objectives or timelines in mind. As students share their interests and passions with Elders and one another, they will learn new things which will help clarify goals and vision, which in turn lets them decide on new actions. The career journey is a walk taken one step at a time, each new step will help focus the next.

The Annual New Sun Conference on Aboriginal Arts is a unique and innovative inter-cultural learning experience inaugurated in 2002 by Dr. Allan J. Ryan, the New Sun Chair in Aboriginal Art and Culture at Carleton University. Now entering its 11th year, the New Sun Conference has brought together in a public forum on traditional unceded Algonquin territory, creative individuals from various First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities, as well as from the non-Native community.

Themes such as “healing through the arts,” “transforming traditions,” “engaging authenticity”, and “inspiring resilience” have been explored in a collegial and communal atmosphere that encourages dialogue on important cultural and artistic issues. The conference honours, and seeks to raise public awareness of individuals whose work affirms contemporary Aboriginal experience and contributes to increased cross-cultural understanding.

Over the last decade the New Sun Conference has developed its own distinct character, acknowledging the indigenous importance of the oral, personal, experiential and relational. The conference is less formal than a conventional scholarly conference, yet more academic than a traditional cultural festival. It is “Something Else Again!”, to cite the theme of the 9th annual conference. Drawing from both indigenous and western pedagogical traditions, the Conference strives to be entertaining, educational, communal, and inspiring.

Presenters have demonstrated expertise in a range of artistic endeavours – from photography, painting, sculpture, and film making, to acting, musical performance, arts education, literature, architecture and even the culinary arts. Notable among the participants have been: Jennifer Podemski, Michael Greyeyes, Don Kelly, Christi Belcourt, Rosalie Favell, Douglas Cardinal, Nadia Myre, Gerald Vizenor, David Ruben Piqtoukun, Taqralik Partridge, Jeff Thomas, Ron Noganosh, Joane Cardinal-Schubert, Maria Campbell, Drew Hayden Taylor and Joseph Boyden.
Presently, the New Sun Conference archive is housed at www.trickstershift.com, the personal website of Dr. Allan J. Ryan, founder and host of the Annual New Sun Conference. Additional funding will allow for the development of a standalone website specifically tailored for the needs of the Conference, participants and attendees.

Way of the Wigwam Pilot Project for Rama First Nation (F.N.)
Agricultural & Outdoor Wildlife Life Skills Center
By Patti Williams-Ingersoll
The Chippewas of Rama First Nation once was a huge tribe that included Beausoleil F.N, Georgian Island F.N. and the Chippewas of Naywash F.N. Our history is best told by the Coldwater Narrow Treat currently in negotiations. What I am proposing could benefit these First Nations as well, partnerships could once again be renewed to make the Agricultural & Outdoor Wilderness Life Skills Center.
I have an idea to develop an Agricultural & Outdoor Wilderness Life Skills Project. This is a project that can involve the whole family and community, we can return to our heritage that for so long has been denied to us. I think we should now pay homage to ourselves and learn to live off the land once again, a pilgrimage to the old ways and to Mother Earth.
As a person with the entrepreneurial spirit, I know I have picked a winner to share because I am passionate about sharing my idea. I think you will be to once I explain how the agricultural & Outdoor Wilderness Life Skills Project will operate. It is innovative, will have a positive impact and will eventually be self sustaining.
Customarily, First Nation people were not farmers but hunter and gather's our food. Today we eat over processed food because fruits and vegetable are to expense for most people living on social assistance or in the modern world we are to busy to prepare health well balanced meals and opt for take out at McDonald's. Diabetes is rampant and out of control because we no practice our traditional methods of hunting with a bow, arrow and snaring. It is true that we can never go back to living off the land full time nor would we really want to leave life's luxuries of running water and heated floors but perhaps we can reintroduce the values and practices that made us distinctly who we are as First Nation people. The ultimate goal will naturally be for the project to be self sufficient and for the community to be self sustaining as well. In all honestly, we can dress like non-native people we can look like non-native people but we will always be First Nation because it is in our DNA.
I would like to propose a partnership with Rama First Nation to farm the property the recently purchased. Relationship will have to be forge in the name of building a agricultural experience to enrich the community. I think we could grow our own fruits and vegetable, an apple orchard, hay, barley and possibly tobacco. We can eat what we need, sell the rest at market for profit to put back into the farm. These are just a few suggestion we can possible grow other renewable resources eventually. We will need to breed our own organic animals for consumption. I think that horses could be have healthful beneficial impact as well.
The Outdoor Wilderness Life Skills Center will be for anyone wishing to learn archery, hunting, trapping, snaring, canoeing, snowshoeing, fishing, wigwam making, cooking, drying meat and fish, berry picking, sweet grass and other medicinal herbs. Adults, youth, children can come and live the way of the wigwam for a week or weeks at a time. We will have teacher passing on their knowledge they way it used to be, generational teaching. It has been said that, "We must know where we come from in order to know where we are going". Author Unknown.
I come from a place where this project is possible because we are a proud progressive people that have evolve and we adapt the change quickly.
My ultimate goal is for First Nation people to reconnect with themselves, Mother Earth because we need to learn to walk gentler on Mother Earth. I believe my project will make a difference because people will be confident, have self-respect and take what is learned out into the world for a fulfilling positive life.
We will be changing the world one person at a time and be making a difference in the world.

Medicine Wheel Make-Over is a program that encourages people to take initiave to make change in their lives based on what it is they want to change and what it is they are ready to change. This is done by developing individual personalized goal plans with each client. This program is based on the Medicine Wheel and the traditional teachings of living in balance.

Medicine Wheel Make-Over initially started with our culture program. Our coordinator was getting a lot of requests for cultural teachings so she developed the first MWM manual as an extension of the culture program. When the culture coordinator stepped down the program didn’t continue. In 2010 a funding opportunity for a pilot project presented itself. Our Director of Initiatives came across this opportunity and immediately thought Medicine Wheel Make-Over would be perfect for this. We were accepted for funding and began to develop this new program into more detail. It's still in the form of development so that at some point it can be eventually passed on to other communities. They can then implement this program within their community.

It starts with a VISION. I want to have a positive impact on generating a safe and positive environment for Native LGBTQ Youths in my community, a place where they can grow on the reservation without feeling the need to hide. I want to bring positive change for young natives through Skateboarding, art, self-confidence, music, and cultural. One of the main goals is to expand this positive movement across many Reservations to promote a healthy lifestyle for young natives, especially with LGBTQ Youths, to educate youths about LGBTQ and to bring anti-discrimination awareness. NYLA (Native Youth Leadership Alliance) has been a huge help with my idea with building a skate park and to calibrate with Native LGBTQ Youth, to have a safe place for youths or an area that bring youths together like a skate park. Native Youth Leadership Alliance gave me the tools and skills to be a role model for youths, and I am growing and learning everyday. Being involved with young Natives in my community, have the same interest in a skate park and a safe place where they can be themselves, and environment free from discrimination. We plan to use the amount of money from Change Markers to start our project. We are planning to skate across the Navajo Nation to bring awareness about the Skate park and awareness for Native LGBTQ Youth in JUNE 2012. With the help from Change Markers this project is possible.

Recently, we held in Saddle Lake Cree Nation a cultural camp for addiction counsellors within Treaty 6 Addictions & Mental Health. Response to this activity suggested that this was a significant benefit for the front line workers in their work with the Aboriginal Peoples of their communities which is initial evidence of the benefit of direct knowledge translation in this area.

Our hypothesis is that an informed blend of western modalities & cultural practices will directly benefit community health services for addictions and mental health.

Building on the work of McCormack (2000) and others (Goldston et al., 2008; Stanley & Zane, 2009) we want to support direct community application of the traditions and philosophy of successful substance abuse treatment and mental health and wellness strategies for Aboriginal people in Canada.

In the communities in which we work we see a disconnection from cultural values and traditions that have fostered a painful and meaningless existence for many Aboriginal people which underlies much of the direct addiction and mental health treatment services provided in the communities. “The discovery of meaning and the resultant healing for Aboriginal clients is being enabled through substance abuse treatment strategies that facilitate reconnection to cultural values and traditions” (McCormack, 2000, p.25).

In reflecting on Maslow’s hierarchy of needs in our communities there has been much work done on meeting the basic needs of the people and building a sense of safety and security. Now work needs to be done on belonging in order to begin to fulfill growth or being needs for personal development.
As part of this we want to build on the success of our previous culture camp opening it up to all our colleagues under the mental health & addictions umbrella. This work helps to preserve the ancient knowledge & wisdom of the Elders. It is Spirit Medicine – holistic treatment of person not treating the symptoms of the client. Identity is at the basis of this work – learning how to reclaim self to reclaim self-reliance building on the strength of relationships and connectedness for healing.

In 1999, the Four Worlds Organization in Canada and the Elders and Wisdom Keepers Council of the Otomi Toltec People in Central Mexico held a gathering for the reunion of the Eagle and the Condor, and together they had a vision. The vision was carried by the leaders of the gathering, and resulted in the First Continental Summit of the Indigenous Peoples in Ottawa in 2001, hosted by the Assembly of First Nations. The Summit made a commitment of unity for social, economic, and cultural cooperation among all the people of North and South America, including the creation of the Indigenous University (www.indigenousuniversity.org).

In 2003, the Otomi Toltec Elders held a meeting to further the vision, and developed a program of education and development including the use drums for healing all our relations, holding circles for telling stories and sharing teachings and ceremonies to bring more harmony, peace and unity to our peoples from the north and the south, to transmit the ancestral wisdom, to educate our families & communities, and to share our cultural heritage with present and future generations.

I’ve been part of this vision, helping organize the drumming and teaching circles for Peace and Happiness. In 2004, I started a long pilgrimage to visit tribes and communities in Mexico, South and North America, sharing the message of the 8000 Sacred Drums Ceremony, an ancient tradition that used to promote the unity and healing of our peoples. Different Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Métis and Inuit have been interested in this initiative, so they have being supporting this gathering in their own lands and territories. We are planning to reinstate the 8000 Drums Ceremony at the Centro Ceremonial Otomi in March of 2012, and this proposal is to continue the pilgrimage in Canada after the gathering, to share our experience with people who were unable to attend.

The 8000 Drums event has already had intergenerational participation, where elders, young people, children, women and men have been part of this drumming, at the same time joining our intentions to come together, honoring our ancestors, sharing stories about our peoples and about the meaning of the drums. We talk about how can we educate each other through ceremonies and in community, how can we heal our hearts, ancestral memories, lands, our clans, and our relationships. Through these gatherings we call for everyone to take responsibility to follow the sacred teachings of our ancestors and to receive the teachings of our wisdom keepers and elders. We all need to learn how to heal our Mother Earth and all beings, how to live with more peace and respect, and how to bring happiness to our lives.

The ceremony, teaching, and healing of the 8000 Drums, of the Reunion of the Eagle and the Condor, and of the Indigenous University has already made a difference in the lives of people throughout North and South America, giving people a sense of unity and a focal point to gather and celebrate our shared heritage.

Discovering that First Nation student high school completion was far below the mainstream average was very altering to me because a quality and informed education opens many doors to the future that non-completion closes. Upon examining the issue, I discovered that many proposed solutions were authored by theorists & ivory-tower professionals rather than involving student voices, experiences, direction, and insights into the core of the solution & ways forward.

By means of the context of a MA Thesis (guided and advised by the Chair of a University Sociology Department), a number of First Nation students and First Nation educators/educational leaders were given an opportunity to share their insight, voices, and experiences by means of open-ended interviews to highlight where supports were lacking and needed and where strengths were strong and could be utilized to better support First Nation and indigenous learners in surrounding school districts.

One insight gained by such shared experiences and voices of students was that the hurdles to support (as well as the supported areas they felt needed to be increased) went beyond the classroom and the school environment into community quality and well-being, family support and encouragement, connection to culture, as well as a number of other factors in the four major areas of school and education, family and relations, community and surroundings, and cultural affinity and relationships with culture keepers. In fact, they felt 'surrounded' by both the issues that impacted them in a negative way (which hindered performance in schools), but felt that the potential sources of support also surrounded them - and change is needed.

By means of such student interviews to convey their unique perspectives, voices, experiences, and messages (& supplemented by regional educators and education leaders), a better understanding of the problems & solutions began to take shape.

These insights and voices were then supplemented by; current and dynamic educational research, Anishinaabe cultural teachings shared to better support student performance, and advising by a number of Anishinaabe mentors.

Beyond the research reflections, the study prompted the development of a framework for a partnership model of educational support specifically for indigenous learners. The model, titled The Gikino Amawaagan First Nation Student Education Support Wheel, creates a community of teaching and learning by forging partnerships between the student & surrounding partners whom are interrelated in their responsibilities to support learning (a defining characteristic of traditional education).

These interrelated partners are family and relations, community members and community leaders/representatives, those who carry the culture and teachings such as elders/lodge-keepers, and school administrators and classroom teachers.

Four declarations such as sobriety, support, stability, and support actively keep the partnerships strong, as well as partnership fundamentals developed & maintained by the Seven Grandfather Teachings and indigenous spiritual world view.

The defining characteristic of this educational support framework is that is was guided and given life by student experiences, quality research, educational leaders and administrators, cultural teachings, and advising by my elders.

I truly hope that many of our youth will be impacted in positive ways and it will help open doors of opportunity for them by giving them dynamic avenues of true support in school.

I began this project with a responsibility to give back to my community. For generations, our young people have been the target of deplorable methods of colonization by means of the education they received. This is my contribution to reverse the situation the best I can.

Various school districts have requested copies of the model & the accompanying summary application document, found here: http://freepdfhosting.com/fdd56748ee.pdf