.
Search
Email this articleE-mail this story  Letter to the EDITORWrite letter to editor  Discuss this articleOrder a classified ad

Breaking the barriers

Support for residential school survivors

Chris Puglia
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 24/03) - A two-day workshop held in Yellowknife this week was geared towards improving supports for residential school survivors.

The Dene Nation, with the support of the GNWT Departments of Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services, hosted the workshop.

"There is no central body or government or unit to watch over what is happening with residential school survivors," said Norman Yakeleya, Dene Nation health manager.

"There are no real programs in place to support the survivors or to form a reconciliation process. That's the most pressing issue."

The goal of the workshop is to lay the framework for creating those programs and processes by bringing various organizations together.

The issues surrounding the negative and traumatic experiences aboriginal people faced in residential schools have been around for decades. However, Yakeleya said, it has only been over the last couple of years that attitudes have really begun to change.

"There was denial on the part of the federal government, the territorial government and the churches," he said.

"Attitudes from that time have changed 180 degrees."

He attributes part of that shift in thinking to the 1998 NWT Grollier Hall settlement.

The case awarded 28 past students of the NWT residential school compensation for abuse claims.

"The Grollier Hall court case had a huge impact," said Yakeleya, who was also a student at Grollier Hall.

Charging forward on that example, Yakeleya and government supporters are looking to develop community supports for residential school survivors.

"These people will have an understanding of the issues that a survivor will be facing in their community," he said.

Through that understanding he hopes that people will identify survivors more easily by seeing through other social problems.

"They will be able to look at a survivor and take a step back. Maybe they will be a little more careful and a little more sensitive," said Yakeleya. In all, 25 people from health and education backgrounds gathered at the Chateau Nova on Wednesday and Thursday to participate. The next workshop will be held in Inuvik on Jan. 28 and 29.

"Hats off to the Departments of Education, Culture and Employment and Health and Social Services for doing this for us with the Dene Nation," said Yakeleya.

"It's a positive change."