By Yuko Inoue
Former Ontario Lt.-Gov. James Bartleman, kicked off the 2nd Conference on Social Identity and Health at Carleton University on Monday, saying there is “no one magic bullet” that will cure all health issues faced by Aboriginal people.
Believing that literacy would help give hope to Aboriginal children on the verge of suicide, Bartleman created the Lieutenant-Governor’s Book Program in 2004 to promote literacy among First Nations children. He collected more than 1.2 million books, donated from all corners of the province to stock school libraries in First Nations communities, particularly in Northern Ontario.’
He also initiated a program to pair up Native and non-Native schools in Ontario and Nunavut, and set-up summer camps for literacy development in five northern First Nations communities.
“But, the suicides continued,” noted Bartleman, who described the need for a “cocktail of remedies” in which cultural identity, education, family structure and a host of other measures are involved.
The first day of the conference included presentations on Aboriginal connections to the land, cultural safety and building healthy indigenous communities.
Also planned were a series of presentations and discussions addressing how social identities diminish illness, as well as networking opportunities.
The event, hosted by Carleton’s Centre for Research on Health: Science, Technology and Policy, aimed to bring together researches from different disciplines to discuss how social identity correlates to mental and physical health. The first day focused on Aboriginal health.
“This is an interesting topic, in part because it’s often…a deficit language,” said Nipissing University President Mike DeGagne.
Most Aboriginal health symposiums discuss the lack of health, he said, so, it is “very positive” that this topic is being discussed in terms of communication, trust and reinforcement of identity.