The Southern Chiefs’ Organization has launched a holistic health-care initiative that it says will centre on the teachings of the Anishinaabe and Dakota Nations of southern Manitoba.
The Healthy Living campaign will contribute to the health of nearly three dozen nations the organization represents, by promoting the physical wellness of youth through basketball, healthy eating through garden competitions, language classes and a First Nation youth drum group, according to a Monday news release from the SCO.
“The 11-year life-expectancy gap is a trend that’s not reversing, it’s actually getting worse … we really need to put a lot of focus into our health care,” Jerry Daniels, Southern Chiefs’ Organization Grand Chief, told reporters at a news conference later on Monday.
“We want to highlight the challenges that we’re seeing with diabetes. We want to get our young people moving. We want to get that relationship with our food made a priority — knowledge, our culture, our languages.”
About two-thirds of the $1.5 million in funding will back young basketball players participating in the revival of the Manitoba Indigenous Summer Games in Sagkeeng from August 17-23.
E.J. Fontaine, chief of Sagkeeng First Nation, told reporters it will be the first time the Games will be held following a 10-year hiatus, and 4,000 athletes, spectators, parents and officials are expected to attend.
“We put together a bid and we proposed to the Manitoba Aboriginal Sports and Recreation Centre to revive the Games, and we were successful in securing the bid along with Norway House,” Fontaine said. “It’s very important that we’re having the Games revived in our communities because we have to give our kids an alternative path to living.”
Fontaine says the Games are the physical health part of the four-directions teachings given to him as a young man by an elder: healthy body, healthy soul, healthy mind and healthy spirit.
“I followed that, and when I was 22 years old, I was able to change my life around from being addicted to drugs and alcohol. And I’m really happy that I followed the advice of the elder,” Fontaine said.
“It’s only through sports and recreation that we’re going to steer our kids, our youth, in the right path, away from some of the drug problems we have in our community.”
Another $100,000 of funding will go to support summer basketball camps for youth in the 32 Anishinaabe and Dakota Nations that SCO represents.
Themes of wellness
The health campaign focuses on seven themes of wellness as medicine: food, water, movement, community, land, knowledge and culture.
As part of the cultural prong of health, a youth drum group will receive $100,000 to aid in the dissemination of songs and dances to young people, with $300,000 put toward language classes in several SCO communities.
Food and the relationship to food will be encouraged through a garden competitions, Daniels says, as a way to spotlight the work already being done in First Nations communities.
“We’ve really wanted to promote healthy eating and the relationship with our food … we want to really push for gardening within the schools … change our eating behaviours and really highlight that among our young people,” Daniels said.
Willie Moore, the Assembly of First Nations regional chief representing Manitoba, says children in the province have the highest rate of Type 2 diabetes in the world, with 85 per cent being Indigenous.
Moore says it’s been 20 years since the Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative, a Health Canada program, last saw a funding increase.
