Aboriginal Healing, Sharing Culture
Sharing Culture |
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Between 1910 and 1970 an estimated 50,000 Aboriginal children were removed from their families. Most were aged under five - This is part of their story.
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Phil Valentine is the Executive Director for the Connecticut Community for Addiction Recovery (CCAR). He has been an integral component in this recovery community organization since January 1999. An accomplished speaker and presenter, he has gained recognition as a strong leader in the recovery community; in 2006 the Johnson Institute recognized his efforts with an America Honors Recovery award. In 2008, Faces and Voices of Recovery honored CCAR with the first Joel Hernandez Voice of the Recovery Community Award as the outstanding recovery community organization in the country. In 2009, the Hartford Business Journal named him the Non-profit Executive of the Year. Currently, he is spearheading CCAR’s effort to build a statewide network of recovery community centers that feature innovative peer recovery support services like telephone recovery support, All-Recovery groups and Recovery Works! employment services. Phil has been instrumental in the development of CCAR’s highly-acclaimed videos "Putting a Face on Recovery!", “The Healing Power of Recovery” and “Legacy of Hope: Recovery Elders Video Project”. He served as CCAR’s point man for the first seven “Recovery Walks!", annual walks held for those in support of recovery from alcohol and other drug addiction. He has designed and facilitated several trainings including the "Recovery Perspective - Beyond the Treatment Episode" and "The Language of Recovery". Phil has willingly shared his experience and expertise with other Recovery Community Organizations. In recovery since December 28, 1987, he is the author of Hooked on Recovery, a blog that has informed the general public about his personal recovery process. Phil believes that being public about his own recovery from alcohol and cocaine addiction helps ease the discrimination surrounding addiction and recovery. He strives to “soften the community” to recovery. A University of Connecticut graduate, he has prior experience as a community counselor in a detox/residential treatment setting and in the field of prevention. He is married and has five children. He coaches youth soccer and his favorite hobbies are surf fishing, golf and movies. Ethan Watters, author of Crazy Like Us: The Globalization of the American Psyche, describes the relationship between psychological healing and a culture's sense of the self. "These ideas of the mind are predictive," he says, "and they are all also tied to culturally specific ways of healing."
American culture is homogenizing the way the world goes mad. Our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented phenomenon. But neither our golden arches nor our bomb craters represent our most troubling impact on the world: the bulldozing of the human mind itself. In Crazy Like Us, leading trend-spotter and science writer Ethan Watters shows that we are not only changing the way the world treats and understands mental illness, we are actually changing the symptoms and prevalence of the diseases themselves. The relationship that Indigenous people have with land and country, and the link between land and country, is best captured by some quotes and film: “For Aboriginal people, land is not only our mother - the source of our identity and our spirituality - it is also the context for our human order.” Foundation for Aboriginal and Islander Research Action “Land is very important to Aboriginal people with the common belief of 'we don’t own the land, the land owns us'. Aboriginal people have always had a spiritual connection to their land, and because of this connection many Aboriginal people will not leave their country. Those who do leave, tend to always come home to visit, keeping the connection. Land to Aboriginal people is a major part of their identity and spirituality. They have a connection and sense of belonging to their land. They gain their strength through their land. Many believe this is because old ancestors were buried in their country and the spirits protect and care for the land and those still alive.” Adapted from Marion Kickett's PhD thesis “Land has recuperative aspects that are essential to Aboriginal well-being. Our land has an important part to play in healing. The land is a powerful healer, as is the sea. When your ancestors have walked these places for millennia, they hold an energy of timelessness that invokes serenity and the feeling that one is not alone, but in the presence of these ancestors, who are able to communicate via the senses and convey the feelings and thoughts that are most conductive to healing. When we are able to sit on our land in contemplation and hear, feel or see the spirits of our old people, than we have been to a place within ourselves of great depth and connectedness. It is this place we need to go to in order to truly heal ourselves: and once we have learnt how to do that, then we can move forward.” C. Clarke and D. Fewquandie Professor Marion Kickett describes the importance of Country and how Dreaming Stories are an important part of her identity. Bob Randall, is an Yankunytjatjara Elder and a traditional owner of Uluru (Ayers Rock). Bob is one of the stolen generation of the Aboriginal people, taken from his family at the age of seven. Throughout his life Bob has worked as teacher and leader for Aboriginal land rights, education, community development and cultural awareness.
Connecting indigenous people to their culture, land, spirituality and history is key for healing to occur. When these connections are strong, indigenous people gain a sense of who they are and where they belong. Culture provides meaning and purpose to life and a sense of wellbeing. Identifying, preserving and sharing culture gives indigenous people a sense of pride and hope of a positive future. All these elements facilitate healing. In the past thirty years in Australia, there has been a massive and unprecedented increase in Indigenous youth self-harm and suicide. Youth suicide has gone from being an extremely rare phenomenon – a word for suicide had to be invented in Arnhem Land in the 1980s – to being the highest in the world. Suicide is rife amongst Indigenous people in other colonised nations. In the recent Elders Report, Elders from around Australia stressed the importance of providing young people with “a cultural foundation and helps protects them from feelings of hopelessness, isolation and being lost between worlds.” Research by Michael Chandler and Chris Lalonde in over 200 indigenous communities in Canada has showed that Indigenous communities that have control over local institutions and are grounded in a collective sense of history and culture have the low rates of suicide or no suicides at all, while indigenous communities with no cultural connectedness had suicide rates over 800 times the national average. The way forward is clear: Connect to culture. Indigenous people must own and control the healing process. Empower Indigenous communities. “… The speakers in this Report are calling for urgent understanding and action to improve Indigenous wellbeing in Australia. What we know from decades of experience is that bringing in outsiders does not lead to long term solutions - these can only come from within communities, who need to own and control the healing process. “Themes such as community empowerment, the strengthening of cultural identity, maintenance of Indigenous languages, culturally appropriate employment, bi-cultural education and returning to country; these human rights are what our people have been advocating for decades and for good reason...” Mick Gooda Dr Joe Solanto talks about the healing of historical trauma, emphasising the importance of connecting to culture.
Professor Pat Dudgeon is from the Bardi people of the Kimberley area in Western Australia. Pat is a psychologist and research fellow at the School of Indigenous Studies at the University of Western Australia. Her areas of research includes Indigenous mental health and social and emotional wellbeing, and suicide prevention. Pat is a member of the executive board of the Australian Indigenous Psychologist’s Association; the Co-chair of the national ministerial Aboriginal Torres Strait Islander Mental Health and Suicide Prevention Advisory Group, and Chair of the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Leadership in Mental Health. Pat is currently the project leader of the National Empowerment Project, an Indigenous suicide prevention project working with eight Aboriginal communities across the country. Pat is also project leader of an Office for Learning and Teaching initiative increasing cultural competence and Indigenous participation in psychology education, and is the project lead for the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Suicide Prevention Evaluation Project (ATSISPEP). Pat is actively involved with the Aboriginal community and has a commitment to social justice for Indigenous people. She was recognised for her work with Deadly Award for Excellence in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health in 2013. Learning history from an Indigenous perspective, illustrating how conditions for social and psychological discontent have developed, helps Indigenous people understand why they have problems. It also shows them that they retain the necessary agency to change their lives for the better. It helps them deal with shame and blame, factors that impact negatively on social and emotional wellbeing. History from an Indigenous perspective helps Indigenous people have pride in their people and in their culture. Would other civilisations have survived such devastating trauma and grief over such a long period in the same circumstances? Indigenous people can either be victims of their past or use the pain of the past to help fuel a new future. This point is made in the beautiful film below. WE SHALL REMAIN was created to address the effects of historical trauma in our tribal communities. Many times, these untended wounds are at the core of much of the self-inflicted pain experienced in Native America. Much like fire, this pain can either be devastatingly destructive or wisely harnessed to become fuel that helps us to rise up and move forward in life with joy, purpose and dignity.
I sometimes hear derogatory comments from non-Indigenous people about their Indigenous fellow citizens. They may complain about someone’s excessive drinking, mental health problems, or even their poverty. When the issue of what has happened in the past is raised I sometimes hear the comment, “That’s in the past. Why can’t they get over it?” Few people (Indigenous and non-Indigenous) know about historical trauma and its impact on Indigenous people. How can a health care person treat someone if they don’t really know what is wrong with them? Schools in Australia still teach primarily a non-Indigenous view of Australian history. Surely, history should be taught from both viewpoints. Shouldn’t our children and youth learn the factors of the past that impact negatively on people’s health and wellbeing? Wouldn’t such an understanding reduce the prejudice and racism that exists in Australian society? The film clips below provide insights into the impact of historical trauma. Dr. Solanto discusses what trauma is, how the experiences of colonisation "qualify" as trauma, how trauma might be transmitted across the generations, crime and other social problems as understandable responses to trauma and implications for healing individuals, families and communities. (This talk continues in Part 2)
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AuthorProfessor David Clark is Founder of the Sharing Culture initiative. Archives
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