Healing in Community- A Decolonized Approach

Between the early 1880's and 1996, over 150,000 Indigenous children were taken from their homes and placed in residential facilities. These facilities were run by churches and paid for by the Canadian government. In these residential schools they were treated horribly. They were not allowed to express their culture or language. This historical trauma has been passed down through generations and caused a tremendous amount of damage. 

The scale of this problem is huge and we believe that our solution will lead to huge healing in our community. 

Our solution is to heal the community beginning with our youth. By connecting youth with Elders, we can bridge that gap and allow for the transmission of knowledge and begin healing. As Rupert Ross states in his 2014 book, Indigenous Healing, we need to "help tell the story of residential schools to the people who need to hear it (youth) if they are ever going to forge healthy relations with their own parents, grandparents and communities." (pg.xv)

Our target population is Indigenous youth. They are typically underserved because of racism, residential school syndrome, effects of the child welfare system, and stereotypes. This solution will offer them education leading to healing and hope.

Our solution will benefit the Indigenous community of the Blackfoot people. We are located adjacent to the largest Indigenous reserve in Canada and their population is over 12,000 (2016) and growing fast. 

Our solution is based on the feedback we have received from the Indigenous youth in our area that we currently serve. The have expressed that they have a lack of knowledge of residential schools and trauma. They do not learn about it in their school systems. 

Our team has been working with Indigenous youth since 2017 by delivering culturally relevant programming in the community. We work as a team as opposed to a top down approach. Many of our projects are youth-led. We believe in the saying, "Nothing about us without us." So only Indigenous youth really know what they need and what the society today isn't giving them. Our role is to empower the youth and uplift their ideas to promote healing. 

Currently our solution is in the idea stage and does not have funding. We believe Solve can help in all ways to assist us in building capacity to deliver this solution. 

Our Team Lead Sheldon Day Chief is a respected Elder in our community and has a fantastic history of working with youth. He currently works within the community and in the schools delivering cultural programs. He is closely connected to other Elders through ceremonial family. He also has a strong partnership with Sik Ooh Kotoki Friendship Society whos mandate is to support Indigenous people transitioning from the reserves to the urban centers. 

Our solution is innovative because there are not any other programs like it in our community. Typically people focus on educating non-Indigenous people about residential schools to promote reconciliation. Our solution is grass roots and focusses on the Indigenous youth that are our future. This could change the market by shifting the focus on who we direct programming to so that greater healing can occur. 

Impact goals:

Increase capacity in Indigenous Youth

Increase healing in Indigenous Youth

Increase knowledge in Indigenous Youth

We are measuring our impact goals by implementing pre and post surveys to Indigenous youth. In addition to this we do post program interviews in order to get narratives from the youth regarding what they have learned. 

Our theory of change is that by connecting Indigenous youth with Elders to share knowledge we will increase healing and resiliency in the community. This will lead to long term increase in well being of the community.

While we are not utilizing typical technology we are using ancestral knowledge as a tool for our solution. Historically, Indigenous people used storytelling as a way to transfer knowledge and that is what we will access by partnering with Elders to support youth. 

Our team is highly educated in all things Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. We have a mandate that our Board of Directors be 100% Indigenous and our staff 75% Indigenous. We strongly believe that we must be aware of bias and priviledge and uplift those that are typically underserved.

We need assistance in developing a business model because this isn't a typical business. 

We plan to do such a good job with our program that we will attract sponsors from the corporate world to help fund our future endeavors. We also continue to apply for non-profit grants and other types of funding to assist us. 

We have received grant funding on a per project basis for many of our projects. More details can be provided upon request.