Equaywuk hosts Cultural Sensitivity workshop

February 5, 2010

The Equaywuk Women’s Group and the Better Care Giving project hosted a Cultural Sensitivity workshop for caregivers of Aboriginal clients at the Sunset Suites in Sioux Lookout. The workshop took place over two days (Jan. 30 and 31) and was broken up into four different sessions. There were over 40 participants in the two-day workshop.

Darlene Angecooneb, Project Coordinator for the Better Care Giving program said the main purpose behind the workshop is to let people who are attending medical school or who are already working within the northern communities or organizations that deal with those communities know some of the cultural differences between Aboriginal people and non-Aboriginal people.

“We teach about the ethics of Aboriginal people and some of the health concerns of Aboriginal people; whether it’s physical, mental, emotional or spiritual,” Angecooneb said.

“We’re hoping to give insight into the life of Aboriginal people and some of the issues with Aboriginal people also. Like the high costs of healthy food for example and the high diabetes rate in the north.”

This is the second time a workshop has been done by Equaywuk and Better Care Giving to provide awareness about Native issues for non-Native people. Jennifer Derosier, Program Director of Equaywuk said “the workshop is supposed to be geared to non-Aboriginal professionals working with Aboriginal clients working mostly in a hospital setting, but this year we have extended it to the general public because we think that cultural differences and understanding them is very important.

“It’s hard to recruit people to come because everyone is so busy, so we tried a weekend workshop this year. And it’s a nice turnout, people are willing to come and listen and raise awareness within themselves, and that’s a good thing.”

Derosier said that some other topics being addressed at the workshop were Native ethics, the history of the Residential schools and the effects of the Residential school system on the Aboriginal population and the work that is currently being done to address those effects. Also, the struggles communities have in the north because of high costs of living.

Other topics discussed over the weekend were contrasting communication styles being Native and non-Native peoples and how to deal with these differences, Elder teachings, understanding the Clan system, and understanding the Anishinaabe worldview.

“Understanding is important and we are talking a lot about respect. And if we lived in a world were everybody had respect for themselves and for each other what a good world we would live in,” Derosier said.