Each week, the Indigenous Health department highlights good news stories from the North and from across the country.
Lheidli T’enneh pleased with renaming
By unanimous decision, Prince George City Council voted in favor of O’Grady Road to be renamed Dakelh Ti, which means First Nations Road. The request was initiated in 2021 by Chief Dolleen Logan following the discovery of the 215 unmarked children’s graves at the former residential school in Kamloops. O’Grady Road was named after Catholic Church Bishop John Fergus O’Grady who was principal at the Kamloops Residential School between 1939 and 1952. He later opened Prince George College in 1960 in Prince George.
“The new name acknowledges the Dakelh (Carrier) people of our nation and other communities in Central BC,” says Acting President of the Lheidli T’enneh Elders Society Darlene McIntosh. “The name change will also help reduce the ongoing trauma of residential schools that many Indigenous people feel on a day-to-day basis. Residential school syndrome is very real, and many Indigenous people struggle with the impacts their parents and grandparents who attended residential schools experienced.”
To read more on this story visit the CKPG website.
FNHA and HSO release BC Cultural Safety and Humility Standard
The release of the British Columbia (BC) Cultural Safety and Humility standard by the Health Standards Organization (HSO) of Canada provides a toolkit that will enable health organizations to address Indigenous specific racism. The standard development was Indigenous driven by First Nations Health Authority with additional input by Métis Nation BC and supports delivering on recommendation 8 from the In Plain Sight report on racism in the BC health system.
Richard Jock, CEO, FNHA noted “The standard was developed by Indigenous thought leaders and champions, providers, patient partners, administrators, academics, and knowledge keepers, co-chaired by Gerry Oleman and Dr. Nel Wieman. I am grateful for their dedication and thoroughness. The Cultural Safety and Humility standard is a quality-based approach to make the BC's health and social service institutions safer for all Indigenous people."
To read about the standard visit FNHA’s website.
Prince George Elder shares his wisdom on what got broken and how to fix it
Yekooche Elder Henry Abel Joseph, of the Dakelh (Carrier) Nation, shares how he has kept his language, his culture, and his spiritual beliefs through surviving residential school and how he uses that resiliency to support others. His healing from trauma journey has taken him to community service work. Elder Joseph shares his work with the Carrier Sekani Family Services helping children lost to the foster care system and his late-night walks talking with and supporting those living on the streets. He volunteers his time and energy wherever it is needed.
Elder Joseph shares, “I would like to say that throughout my life I was gifted with many beliefs and teachings from Elders during my formidable years from when I was born to the time, I was eight and a half years old,” Elder Joseph said. “We learned about spirituality.” Being grateful to the animals to so important. We are taught that there is no fear when there is respect. The environment is made to be part of the safekeeping culture where things are nurtured, not destroyed. We have to take care of our environment because it’s for the children – it’s going to be theirs very soon”.
For more on this story visit the Prince George Citizen’s website.