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To those who are wondering if they should or shouldn't donate, the following observation of a freeze frame of poverty might aid in this decision.
Summer of 1998 I worked in Attawapiskat. The diesel plant for producing electricity was closely surrounded by houses. This plant emitted a steady loud hum which invaded the walls of the people's dwellings, so much that one could not hear the wind. It was noise pollution and wholistically unhealthy.
This may not sound like much to people who have or live in cities with their high levels of noise pollution yet for a people who had lived on the land, this noise must have felt like an ongoing and direct assault on the living body. As I passed it I also wondered often if its central location had originally been more to do with decreasing infrastructure costs, that this looked good on a budget sheet somewhere yet its future ramifications on people's well-being had not been taken into consideration.
When one looks back to the gathering and centralizing First Nation people's into small villages and the subsequent underfunding for village infrastructures, I believe the spotlight for such decisions as the above placement of plants and houses illustrates falls on the government bodies. This is to say the overall 'approach' was not integrated and further, native peoples of Canada were perceived as second class, and prejudice and a paternalistic attitude was rampant in these governing bodies.
What I find outrageous is the grinding slowness to come to terms with these past misdeeds and slow allocation of necessary funding to make all villages habitable [potable water, private dwellings and schools]. It makes me wonder if a negative legacy within the governing system continues.
I truly believe that it is the average non-native Canadian's empathic and financial support that is now needed as the decision makers are too far removed physically or too intellectually and emotionally feeble to come to terms with these ongoing dire situations hence they continue to not make the necessary adjustments in an expedient and long term manner.
Another problem area is the dominant linear pattern of thinking and doing. Replacing this with wholistic patterns brings us all forward and into native reality and philosophy. Without this intellectual foundation and its leap forward [for all humankind], understanding will flounder and suffering will continue.
It is not such a quantum leap if one spends a moment thinking of what it is like to be living with a machine humming night and day then add boiling all of your drinking water; sleeping in shifts due to overcrowding; paying exorbitent prices for healthy nutrition [Aug 1998 a 10 lb bag of potatoes was $13.00 at the Northern Store]; having your family name anglicized and landmarks renamed; and so on until the circle of your past and present existence is filled. Under these conditions the urge to escape a depressive daily reality through chemical abuse [gas sniffing by the young for example] and suicide becomes understandable and the solutions to decrease these adverse outcomes become crystal clear.
The Standing Proud Project sounds like a drumbeat [heartbeat] to me and intellectually is one part of an integrated approach that can help to widen the path out of the cul de sacs of poverty. One empowered individual simultaneously empowers one family, one community, and one nation.
Until all non-native Canadians take a personal stand for First Nations, Metis, and Inuit peoples of this great land we can not be perceived as "the true north, strong and free".
Thank you for listening.
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