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Posts Tagged ‘Aboriginal Awareness Week’

Remembering Murdered and Missing Aboriginal Women

Posted on: May 28th, 2012 by Nellie's No Comments

Last December we wrote about Human Rights and Aboriginal Women in Canada, a topic we would like to re-visit today in honour of Aboriginal Awareness Week.  Aboriginal women continue to experience violence at a rate higher than any other group of women in Canada.  They are 5 times more likely to die as a result of violence and 3.5 times more likely to experience spousal abuse than non-Aboriginal women.  Rather than looking at violence against Aboriginal women as an individual problem, Canadians must recognize it as the deep structural problem it is – created through years of colonialism, racism and genocide.

According to the Native Women’s Association of Canada, more than 580 Aboriginal women and girls have gone missing or have been murdered in Canada.  Most of these murders have happened in the past two decades and nearly half of these cases remain unsolved.  Amnesty International’s Stolen Sisters Report, released in 2004 remains one of the most comprehensive pieces of literature to address this very serious issue.

(image from aaron.resist.ca)

At Nellie’s we believe that acknowledgement is the first step towards healing and we are committed to bringing awareness to the issue of violence against Aboriginal women and children as well as supporting them on their journey towards a life free from violence.  As part of our programming, we attend First Nations events including the Stolen Sisters march and vigil every October 4th.  Staff and clients also participate in ongoing anti-racism training to increase awareness and understanding of the issues Aboriginal women and children face as a result of colonialism and racism in Canada.

In 2010, the Native Women’s Association of Canada released a community resource guide “What Can I Do to Help the Families of Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls?” .  The guide includes comprehensive information about how you can get started as an advocate and raise awareness about the issue of violence against Aboriginal women.  Also included in the guide is information for service providers about how to support the families of murdered women as well as resources for teachers and educators.

As Aboriginal Awareness Week comes to a close, we encourage everyone to remember the missing and murdered Aboriginal women who have been taken from us and to pledge your support to keep this important issue circulating in the media, online, and in our own personal conversations so that we do not lose any more sisters.

United Nations says Canada’s Poor are Hungry

Posted on: May 24th, 2012 by Nellie's No Comments

Just prior to Aboriginal Awareness Week, UN special envoy Olivier De Schutter was invited to examine hunger and food access in Canada. After an 11 day mission, De Schutter released his findings on May 16:

“What I’ve seen in Canada is a system that presents barriers for the poor to access nutritious diets and that tolerates increased inequalities between rich and poor, and aboriginal and non-aboriginal peoples.”

His report also described the situation in many of Canada’s aboriginal communities as desperate: “A long history of political and economic marginalization has left many indigenous peoples with considerably lower levels of access to adequate food relative to the general population.”

In response to the report, the Federal Government represented by Minister of Citizenship Jason Kenny blasted the report’s findings and said “…the contributions we make to the UN should be used to help starving people in developing countries. Not to give lectures to wealthy and developed countries like Canada.”

(image from aptn.ca)

Today, almost 1 in 10 people in Canada live in poverty. Most of them are children who go hungry every day. We see their mothers every week at Nellie’s in long line ups waiting for the food that will provide them hunger relief.

Aboriginal Awareness Week is a time to reflect on the injustices that Aboriginal people have endured since colonization and that continue to this day, including barriers to access food.

For more information on the United Nations report you can view this video from CBC.

The full report is available here.

Celebrating Aboriginal Canadian Achievement!

Posted on: May 22nd, 2012 by Nellie's No Comments

May 22nd to 24th marks Aboriginal Awareness Week in Canada.  Celebrated annually, this week offers Canadians an opportunity to learn more about the history of Canada as well as Aboriginal culture today.  Buffy Saint-Marie, Tomson Highway, and Adam Beach are three Aboriginal Canadians today who are internationally recognized for their respective work in music, writing and acting.

Buffy Saint-Marie is an Academy Award and 3-time Juno winning Canadian Cree musician whose work has inspired people all over the world.  Her song “Universal Solider”has been called the anthem for the peace movement and she has been a tireless advocate for Aboriginal and Indian Rights even when governments and the media tried to suppress her.

In 1970 she wrote and sang the title song for the movie “Soldier Blue” which vividly and unapologetically depicted Native American genocide at the hands of the colonial Americans.  The New York Times called the movie “among the most significant, brutal, liberating, and honest American films ever made”. Unfortunately the movie was quickly removed from theatres due to its “controversial nature.”  Most recently, Buffy Saint-Marie was inducted into the Canadian Country Music Hall of Fame and released her eighteenth studio album “Running for the Drum” for which she was awarded her third Juno.

Tomson Highway is a celebrated Canadian Cree playwright, novelist and children’s author.  He has been awarded 8 honorary degrees, a National Aboriginal Achievement Award, and was the first Aboriginal writer to be given the Order of Canada.  The inspiration for much of Highway’s work comes from his traumatic experience in the Residential School System where he was sexually abused as well as the stories of those he worked with as a Social Worker on reserves across the country.

Highway has been called Canada’s foremost voice in Aboriginal Theatre.  His first play, The Rez Sisters speaks about the two opposing forces shaping Aboriginal women’s lives, modern and traditional, and was nominated for a Governor General’s Award.  In addition to writing plays, Tomson has published three children’s books including Caribou Song, which was selected as one of the Top 10 Children’s Books by the Globe and Mail in 2001.  Caribou Song tells the story of three young Cree brothers and their magical experience with the caribou they are following.  Today Highway is at work on his second novel.

Adam Beach is a Canadian Saulteaux actor best known for his performances in North 60, Flags of our Fathers and Arctic Air.  Beach has won three Best Actor awards from the American Indian Film Festival, the First American in the Arts, and the San Diego World Film Festival.  In 2008 Beach was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his work in Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.

As one of the most recognizable Canadians in television and theatre today, Beach is also active in politics and in 2006 ran for the leadership of his Lake Manitoba First Nation.  In an interview with Canadian Living, Beach commented on how few Aboriginal actors there are, “It’s time for the stories of Indians to be told by their own people.”  Last year Beach played the title role in “Tommy Prince: Devil with a Heart” about First-Nations war hero Tommy Prince who gained reputation as one of Canada’s most celebrated soldiers in World War II and the Korean War.

Over the next four days, National Aboriginal Awareness Week is a time for all Canadians to reflect and celebrate the culture and achievements of Aboriginal peoples.