Phase One Final Report
June 2006
Abstract
The Traditional Wisdom Project (Phase One) is an exploratory study that combines, standard surveys, focus groups and interviews using a grounded theory and an action research approach to explore Aboriginal community perceptions and ideas about how they perceive possible applications of Aboriginal culture, principles and practice in the work place, in Board governance and in management, or not. Outcomes of Phase One, will guide development of Phase Two.
Keywords - cultural practice, management, board governance, action theory and grounded theory.
The convergent messages that came through the triangulated research method are the following:
- Culture is important as a foundation in all organizations.
- Culture is important to guide behavior and ensure respect for fellow employees, clients, Board members and management personal.
- Culture is important to the future of the people
- Culture is what makes the system different
- Culture is the source of the teachings.
- Culture is equally important to Métis, First Nations, Off reserve, On Reserve and Urban Aboriginal peoples.
Ni Toyi Knowledge and Learning Centre would like to thank the Funding agents, Western Diversification for the opportunity to confirm the importance of our culture. Once again the Aboriginal community has confirmed that culture is important and applicable in all aspects of the lives of the people in today’s world. This report also appears on the Ni Toyi web site. In the future we hope to receive funding to more widely distribute the findings of this report so that the community can use the insightful comments and suggestions when seeking and validating funding requests for their cultural endeavors.
Introduction
The Traditional Wisdom Project (Phase One) explores and provides answers to the question: Is it important to apply cultural practices to management, day-today service operations and Board structures in Aboriginal agencies?
This exploratory study highlights possible suggestions and uses of culture in contemporary, service delivery and the management and Board practices that support them. Participants provided not only ideas about how to use culture but also provided limitations should be placed. This study was designed to be inclusive of all Aboriginal peoples. The targeted groups are: First Nations, Status, and non-status, off reserve, on reserve, Metis in all age groups, youth, working age and seniors; of both, male and female gender. Inuit were also included however there are none in this study. All remaining groups are proportionately represented.
This study utilizes both quantitative and qualitative methodologies. The survey questionnaire was designed by an Aboriginal community focus group which consisted of 12 people. Focus group participants were so interested in capturing the data that the survey questionnaire became was very complex and detailed (10 pages long). Feedback from community youth said the questionnaire was too long. This was a well justified complaint. Staying true to an action research process the community questionnaire was administered in its original form. Because of this, there was a significant difference in the amount of time it took to complete a questionnaire. Each questionnaire took from three to four hours versus the originally anticipated (and budgeted) twenty minutes. The questionnaire was composed of open and close ended questions. An open ended question followed each inquiry allowing the participant to add their thoughts and experiences in each subject heading. The focus of the community’s interest rested on collecting responses from each question in seven primary service delivery areas. The qualitative data from the questionnaires was coded and compared with findings from the interviews and focus groups material.
The questionnaire provided a rich source of information while the focus groups and interviews validate and deepen the meaningfulness of the findings. Triangulation of the data allowed a cross-check to verify the findings.
Analysis and organization of the material was guided by a grounded theory approach. Grounded theory permits the identification of recurring themes, threads and story lines.
Consent Forms and Participant Attribute Highlights
Participants signed a consent form with an attached list of questions that identified attributes such as Indian status, three age groups, and gender as well as general inquiries about employment (FT/PT) and three questions about their interest in cultural activities. Trends identified in this data are the following.
Gender and Status and Residency
The majority of the participants are First Nations (73 %). Metis people represented (27%) of the participants. Of the total questionnaire participants (37) First Nations females (14) have the highest representation with First Nations males (11) somewhat lower. Representation of the Metis group shows a slightly higher male representation (6) than Metis females (4). None of the participants responded as having Inuit Status.
Of the First Nations people, 4 said that they live on reserve. The remaining 32 people live in the City of Calgary.
Residency
Questionnaire participants (37) were asked if they lived in the city for more or less than a year. Four participants did not answer as they identified their residency as “on reserve”. Cross reference to age groups show the following trends.
First Nations respondents show that there are twice as many First Nations of working age who have lived longer than one year in the city of Calgary and that of the total number of respondents only one third said they lived less than a year in the city. First Nations youth show that less then ¾ of the respondents have just arrived in the city and only one quarter has been in the city for more than a year.
The distribution for the Metis respondents show an even number (50%) of the Metis respondents are new arrivals to the city for both the working age and youth groups.
Age
The age groups are youth 0-29; to reflect service funding criteria, working age 29-65; and elders 65+.
Of the 37 questionnaire participants 10 identified as youth, 24 as working aged and one as an elder 65 and over. Two participants for some reason did not answer the question.
Participation in Cultural Activities
Three questions were developed to establish the participant’s personal interest in and partici0pation in a variety of culture events. Pow-wows are considered by most to be a community event and less intense while ceremonies are generally considered more intense. A third question allowed participants to include other cultural events, such as drum making, dancing or personal meetings with elders.
First Nations
First Nations participants indicated they attend pow-wows significantly more frequently (21/6) than any other cultural event. A majority of the First Nations participants (18/8) indicated that they attend ceremonies and a smaller portion of participants (15/11) said they participate less in other cultural events. One participant chooses not to answer any of the questions on culture.
Metis
Metis participants (7/3) attend pow-wows slightly more than any other cultural event. A slight majority (6/4) of the Metis participants said the attend ceremonies and other cultural events.
Highlights and Comments from the Questionnaire Data
Questionnaire responses were organized by the community into seven typical service delivery areas, housing, employment, social service, education, health, justice and funding. The community included each service delivery area in each question.
The question: Are you satisfied with Aboriginal cultural services you have received in the following domains? (Mentioned above).
Social services shows the largest portion of respondents (almost 30% percent) said social services provided cultural services that were moderately satisfactory. 26% said that they did not. 15% reported low satisfaction and 10 % rated the services as moderately high. One percent rated the services as high. Almost 19% percent of the respondents choose NA.
Justice services domain the majority 38% of the respondents
choose NA. This response would indicate either that the majority have not
used services in the justice domain or that they are not aware of cultural services
in the domain.
37% of the respondents were not satisfied with culturally appropriate services
in the justice domain. 10 % rated the service low. 7% rated the service as moderate
and 7% rated the services moderately high and 1% percent rated the service high.
The housing domain was rated by the majority (37%) of respondents as not satisfied with the provision of Aboriginal cultural services in this domain. 14% of the participants rated the service low, 10% rated the service moderate and 1% rated the service mod/high. None of the participants rated the service high. 38% chose NA, this may be due to not using the services or not being aware of cultural services in the domain.
In the funding domain the majority of the participants (32%)
were not satisfied with Aboriginal cultural services. 25% did not respond.
23% rated the service as moderate and 10% rated the service low 10% rated services
moderately high. No one rated the service high.
The health domain was rated by the majority if the participants
(37%) as moderately satisfactory. 35% were not satisfied with the
Aboriginal cultural, and 12% reported low satisfaction with the services. 9% said
they had a moderately high satisfaction rate and one reported a high satisfaction
rate. 8% responded as NA.
The employment domain was rated by the majority of participants (37%) as not satisfied. 15% of the participants rated the service as low. Another 15% rated the services a moderate and an additional 11% rated the services at moderately high. No one rated the services with a very high satisfaction rate. 22% reported as NA.
The education domain was rated by the majority of participants (27%) as not satisfactory. 24% rated the services as moderate. 17% rated the service low. 11% rated the services with a moderately high satisfaction level and 10% rated the service high. 11% reported NA. This service rated the highest proportional satisfaction level for Aboriginal cultural service.
Questionnaire Comments
Importance of Culturally Appropriate Management and Boards
- For the creation of strong policies and Board procedures that support Aboriginal staff and services
- They should make good rules that take care of the people
- To increase the effectiveness of organizations and to retain Aboriginal employees and to educate and role model appreciation for diversity
- Open minds and spirit in making decisions and affecting business
- To make decisions as a group
- To keep the people aware of the problems
- The help the Board and management understand the needs of the people
- Management and Boards will only continue to colonize the people without cultural integrity
- This would help the everyone, employees and workers would be supported
- Traditional practices will give everyone a say, the whole must agree
- This would help to deal with cultural barriers to good service. The focus would be on change of systems instead of forcing the people to change
- People would see that Aboriginal people are a unique group of people with unique needs
In the following thematic analysis of the Interviews and Focus Groups the need for cultural integration and compatibility is again urged by participants. They have expressed the need in their words. We are leaving their words intact, and simply identify emergent themes.
Question 1: Do you think culture is important to Aboriginal people today?
IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE
A majority of the participants in all focus groups stated that Culture was very important to Aboriginal people and Aboriginal interests. Some of the quotes that highlight these statements are listed here.
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“Culture helps connect us back to our spirit, and unless we are connected to spirit, we are people that are constantly looking to belong outside of ourselves, culture is one thing that pulls us back into our own spirit, so we belong to ourselves, which connects us to our home.”
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“That is what distinguishes you, is who you are and your belief systems, and ultimately how you conduct yourself. Really, if you’re following your culture, it really differentiates how you act from other cultures, and what you find appropriate and inappropriate, etc. I think culture is often invaded, or maybe people don’t have the opportunity to their culture, they don’t know a lot about it unfortunately, but I think it’s a significant thing.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/FEMALE
“…culture is important, because it is apart of their heritage and the language.”
“…I think there is a lack of culture, I think that bringing back some of the cultures, values definitely would help some of the social problems that exist.”
“Yes, because a lot of us are losing our culture and I think we should all know it.”
TRADITIONS/TRADITIONAL TEACHINGS
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“Number one, I feels it’s important that people of Aboriginal and Métis, or whatever the Federal Government categories us as, I believe that it’s very important we keep the traditions alive.”
ABORIGINAL IDENTITY
MÉTIS/WOMEN
“I think it is important for people to have an identity of who they are,
because if a Native person, isn’t around any other Native people, and doesn’t
know any, for example children who have been adopted out, even if they had a normal
life, like an non-aboriginal normal life, I think they would always feel like
something’s missing, so I think that just kind of brings together who they
are…”
“I really think of it as, because we always have to be going back to where
our roots are from and be proud of that, and to bring value into that and to not
be ashamed of where we come from.”
“Yes, I believe that because you got to know where you come from, and if you know where you come from you usually know where your going.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“First of all identity, people need to relate to each others identity…and be proud of who they are.”
CURRENT PROBLEMS
(a) IGNORANCE
FIRST NATIONS/ON-RESERVE/ELDER/MALE
“There’s a lot of ignorance out there about what Native people are all about, and I think that when other people see Native people participating in their cultural activities, I think it will help them to appreciate us more and also open up their eyes to see what we are all about.”
(b) LOSS OF LANGUAGE
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“…the little kids, don’t even know our language to keep it going.”
(c) LOSS OF CULTURE
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/FEMALE
“I think a lot of people from reserves have lost a lot of their culture and I think the Elders are trying to help them.”
“…they would understand where Aboriginal people come from…and their way of life, so that they can better understand what needs they have and I think Aboriginal people would be more comfortable trying to access services as well…”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“I guess it would be a lot better, then they would know what our culture is about, and they would be in touch with what we do, what ceremonies we do and stuff, they’ll know what goes on with us. They’ll understand us better.”
Question 2: Do you believe the Board and Management of aboriginal services should be culturally aligned?
CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE SERVICES AND BENEFITS OF THESE SERVICES:
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“It doesn’t matter which systems are involved with Aboriginal people, they must be culturally aligned, in order to help Aboriginal people, or they risk being biased, with their own biases, what they’re doing, is there still colonizing Aboriginal people by imposing their own biases, despite the fact they may be very well intentioned, you have to be culturally aligned with the people you are involved with, or you will not be effective at all, or only effective to a certain degree.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“It’s my observation surrounded by Aboriginal culture, working on a reserve for 5 years that there is a lack, I think that if they get us used to get the culture back in the system I think that they could correct a lot of things that are going wrong, and recognize the way that they strayed from traditional way, and just get back in the line of a more harmonious way dealing with things, and bringing it back to the way it should be, fixing a broken patient.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/FEMALE
“Yeah, they should be because they have to know where, like if they have Aboriginal employees they have to know what they’re feeling, where their coming from and what they want.”
“Because Aboriginal people need to incorporate their own set of values and beliefs, which makes up Aboriginal culture so that their services are more applicable and they are more applicable to Aboriginal people and they can understand their needs.”
TRADITIONS/TRADITIONAL TEACHINGS
The traditions and traditional teachings are also known as “the old ways”, by many Aboriginal people. The last three (3) quotes under this heading speak of the old ways.
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/FEMALE
“I think it would be a good idea to have Boards and management, be a little more, quite a bit more knowledgeable on Aboriginal customs, traditions, and that.”
“I would like to see the old traditional ways, I think it would be of great value.”
METIS/YOUTH/MALE
“Yes, I do. I think the old ways, and the values of all people should
be considered at a whole, and its been fragmented, so I believe that the needs
of changing that for the community, and for each individual, will help everyone
as a complete
community, instead of fragmenting it apart.
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“I think Boards and management should practice the old way, they should actually structure themselves the old way.”
ABORIGINAL DECISION MAKING PROCESSES
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“An Aboriginal decision making model, where everyone buys into a process, its not just a hierarchy structure, where the top person gets to make decisions, decisions should all have to come from everybody, even a medicine wheel approach would be a good type of approach, because its balance, like making sure
PROBLEMS:
(a) NON-ABORIGINAL DECISION MAKING FOR ABORIGINAL PEOPLE
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“…I guess in my perspective you often see Boards, or the decision makers of organizations that are Aboriginal, and there’s not an Aboriginal person to be seen in the room when decisions are being made, in other words a government level, municipal or grassroots type organization. And it actually makes me kind of sad to see that. It actually, you see it quite often, so I think its something that should be worked on I guess, or actively addressed.”
(b) EUROPEAN INFLUENCE
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“There are a lot of problems today with structures and Boards because its too, a little too European the way its structured.”
“There has been too much influence being run by Boards, their following protocol from different peoples view.”
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“I guess there’s a real balance that needs to be to be put in place because the Board and the organizations are non-traditional, their city, or non-Native organizations…”
(c) LACK OF CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“They couldn’t understand what they were being told, and I understood this by their expressions and their mannerisms and when I taught them in a way that they could understand then, their expressions and their mannerisms changed and they totally understood, and I think it’s imperative that they understand what is being told to them.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“…I think they would better understand what we go through.”
“…you can teach people the medicine wheel, and a holistic approach to learning, and all that type of things, and people can understand that, but to understand that, and to know something from your heart I think are two different things, so I think if people are aware, and have respect, and try to understand where Native people are coming from…”
Question 3: What benefit from culture do you believe Aboriginal people would get from services that have Boards and management services aligned with Aboriginal values?
ABORIGINAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESSES
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“I fully believe that the benefit that these people will get is that they can make totally informed decisions for the very first time in their lives.”
IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“..the benefits of a company respecting my beliefs as an Aboriginal person with culture, and traditional practices, it would definitely open their doors…”
FIRST NATIONS/ON-RESERVE/WOMAN
“It will break down a lot of barriers that are now present, like the racism…”
CULTURALLY APPROPRIATE SERVICES AND BENEFITS OF THESE SERVICES
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“It would greatly increase the appropriateness of service, or the understanding, for the people, for the front line workers, to clearly see what the issues are, rather then having to create internal ideas of just shuffling people through the system you know……hopefully, the front line workers who are the actual ones who deal with the people, a better foothold, in providing sincere services…”
“…if the client had a sense that this was genuine…they would be more likely to tell you what the real problem is, that they need help with…And, I guess that would make service more efficient and effective.”
FOCUS GROUP 3
“I think the people would be happy if they were able to get cultural appropriate services…”
“…our Elders and people that we are ignoring right now are brought back into systems…”
“The children would be happier; there would be more respect for the people, more respect for the old people. All of them would be helping one another.”
“Our families would be strong again, our homes would be strong again, our reserves would be strong again.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/WOMAN
“If they were all aligned… Aboriginal people wouldn’t feel so marginalized.”
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“I think it would give them a comfort level, sometimes I think Aboriginal people don’t take advantage of services, because they don’t feel comfortable. I think if they see that there’s Aboriginal content, awareness, and also see actual Aboriginal people dealing with them, will help them give them a confidence, and a comfort level, where they would actually benefit from the service…”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/FEMALE
“People would benefit from the services; they would learn their history, the root of their history as an Aboriginal person.”
IMPORTANCE OF ELDERS
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/WOMAN
“I think if management was aware that there should be an Elder present, and the reason an Elder should be present, I think that would be terrific.”
PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/FEMALE
“The root of their history as an Aboriginal person would provide cultural growth for them, and all that combined would give them pride back as an Aboriginal person, which will develop stronger people with the families.”
“…we would have more of a community, everyone would get to know each other if there’s a problem, everyone would be able to count on each other for things…”
TRADITIONS/TRADITIONAL TEACHINGS
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“I believe it would benefit each and everyone if they had traditional values.”
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“A company had to let go of a few people, you got your people together, you smudged, and ya’ll took in some sort of a circle and discussed who could e let go without any hard feelings and everybody discussed it, and the person who’s going to be let go is going to feel a lot better then just being told that they got fired, because there was smudging, there was talking about it, everybody was putting in their two cents in to make it feel like there’s a reason, and why it was happening, if I was one of those people let go, I’d feel a lot better, because I’d know that my spirit and my personally wasn’t because of the job, it was because of the money, and being let go wouldn’t be so harsh.”
PROBLEMS:
(a) IGNORANCE
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/GENDER UNKNOWN
“People to begin with, are going to do something racist against the Aboriginal race because they don’t know a lot.”
(b) EUROPEAN INFLUENCE
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“…their training is from a traditionally white university and then there expected to go to the reserve, and they’re thrown all these curve balls and they see a side of dysfunction that they’ve never experienced, and their not trained for it.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“…nobody is listening, I think its because people are still trying to impose their own biases…Aboriginal people can never move beyond that system, it becomes, so systematically embedded in them, you can never get out of it, so all systems actually force dependency…”
(c ) LACK OF CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“…if I have to go and do a Sundance, do I go to my boss and say, “I have to take 13 days off to get spiritual food”, are they going to be able to provide me with sick leave, is this going to jeopardize my job, where in a lot of places that I would work, none of them would allow me to take that time off.”
“It would be nice to have that support, from Corporations, or from employers, to know that I can take time off for certain functions and not lose my job for it.”
Question 4: What do you think management and Boards can learn from Aboriginal cultural values?
ABORIGINAL DECISION-MAKING MODEL:
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“I think the decision making process, would probably be altered to be more perhaps outside the box thinking…be more client driven…”
IMPORTANCE OF CULTURE:
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“Well, structure, why I think it is so important, ceremonies take a commitment, and your humbled when you do these things, the board would learn not to shoot from the mouth, they would actually listen to everything first, take it in, and then pray about it, smudge, as Creator to give guidance, instead of using that human feeling of emotion, and zoning in on that instead of taking the whole into account.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/FEMALE
“Everyone should understand their culture and believe something.”
IMPORTANCE OF ELDERS:
FIRST NATIONS/ON-RESERVE/MALE
“Pretty much what they would have to do is ask our Elders. Get advice from our Elders and spiritual leaders.”
TRADITIONS/TRADITIONAL TEACHINGS:
MÉTIS/WOMAN
“I think a holistic approach works for all people, not only Aboriginal people…”
‘I believe that bringing these teachings to the table with management Boards would strengthen itself in a certain way…”
“I think that what they’re going to be learning is that keeping the practices together is going to make a strong community for people, to make a strong family, and it’s going to make a really strong Aboriginal community.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/MALE
“Spirituality is the key component to all healing and bringing all people together…”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“If they started to follow the way of our teachings, I think all these Board and Committees could put that into our work and hopefully the people are helped by it…”
PROBLEMS:
(a) LACK OF CULTURAL UNDERSTANDING
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/FEMALE
“If people go in there and educate them more about our traditional values, then they’ll understand our traditional values.”
FIRST NATIONS/OFF-RESERVE/YOUTH/MALE
“I think they would learn what their people want, what their people desire…”
(b) IGNORANCE
FIRST NATIONS/ON-RESERVE/ELDER/MALE
“One thing I believe is that education, really open up their eyes, because I really feel that a lot of distress that is out there comes a lot actually from ignorance, that’s what I see, and if people become more educated in these areas and get to know what Native people are all about, they’ll find out that they don’t’ have to be afraid of anything.”
Focus Group Thematic Analysis
Question 5: Can you recall any services or particular services that are practicing culturally appropriate services and if so, what is it they do?
CULTURALLY RELEVANT SERVICES
“Yes there are services that are good, the justice system has programs sweats and activities that are in the system, also there’s some sweats and stuff like that that are available to the inmates. There are a few programs that are here, the health system has elders that are there. The school systems have got elders that come in, they have people that come in and tell the kids stories. They’re also some teaching culture in the education and language programs. So there are things that are happening with culture in some of the systems.”
“The University as well in Lethbridge has strong culture programs and strong grounding in culture.”
EUROPEAN INFLUENCE
“Anything that’s on the reserve right now is following white ways. The way they do social work, the way they do policing, the way they do educations, schooling, everything is done the white way, there’s nothing.”
“Even in the band offices there they answer the phone like white people. I can’t believe that!”
Question 6: Are you aware of any Aboriginal decision making processes on the reserve?
ABORIGINAL DECISION-MAKING PROCESS
“At ceremonies there is decision-making because there is rules…”
“…the mediation process that was used, is just used occasionally.”
Question 7: Do you think Aboriginals would use services that are culturally appropriate?
CULTURALLY RELEVANT SERVICES
“…they would feel more comfortable with them.”
“I think that if the services were there they would come. I don’t think that there would be any question about it.”
“We need to have culturally appropriate services. This work here that’s going on is really good because if people hear what the people are asking for, perhaps they’ll work harder to implement these things in a better way. We need to have our culture everywhere in everything that we do. If we want people to understand who they are, respect who they are then we have to practice it ourselves in all the places that we work and in all the activities that we do.”
“I’m really upset with social services. They don’t understand the people at all - they don’t understand how they think they can operate without understanding the people. If they were able to change that of course the people would be happy. There’re some people I think that won’t want to have culturally appropriate workplaces, maybe because they don’t understand what the culture does. I think that some people would be learning all this for the first time, and haven’t had the chance like we did, like most of us that are here today were raised by the Old People. We know what those old people valued, the way they treated each other with respect.”
Question 8: What would an Aboriginal decision-making model look like or be like?
ABORIGINAL DECISION-MAKING MODEL
“There would be Elders; Elders would be used for it.”
“I think that a decision making model would have, would be a long process where all people would help with the decision, and the individual would have to be responsible for correcting any of the problems that they created. That it would be a community response to anything that was going on. Rather then the outside people making a decision that has nothing to do with people or anything.”
“I think that there has to a complete action for our people that are involved in the decision making, its not a decision made by one person, but a decision that consensus of the entire community. I think that model would work quite well and I think that if we had a decision that all the people make together then its easier to complete it successfully. And when the person them selves is involved in the things that are planned the reality, of it being successful is stronger.”
“It would have elders on it. It would have all of the people involved in the decision making, not like the Court Systems or social work or any of those systems now where there’s people making decisions who have nothing to do with those people.”
“So we need to figure out a way so that we can recreate the places that our old people used to teach us. So how do we teach them? I think what we have to do is begin with those children. Our children are our future. Children are the most important part of the community right now, and it’s them that we would have to teach. It’s them that would have to start to relearn those values and principals. They’re the ones that have to come up in this world and build that right into their families and homes. Many of the adults today don’t have those teachings. They came through the Residential School System, it taught them nothing.”
“If we had a decision making model that was aboriginal we would have to have a whole community that was using those principals.”
“ If we build those things back in our community, it will heal itself. The decision making model isn’t enough, we need to bring the culture back into all elements including our homes so that all people know how to make decisions in a respectful way for all people.”
“A decision making model would be a community model, it would include all the people that are involved in it, and it would have elders that enforce strictly just like the old ways. People would not have alternatives…”
“I think it would have to have some people with authority in it otherwise some people might not take it seriously. So I think that the Chief and Council will have to support this and be represented in some way so that the community would see that they see it as important.”
“Part of the solution should always be to ensure that family is kept strong, and that women are kept strong, and that they’re taught how to teach their children with respect and caring that our old people were taught.”