The Impact Of Colonization On The Health Of Aboriginal People

March 24, 2010

5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. EST
NOSM EAST: Medical School Building, Room 107
NOSM WEST: Medical School Building, Room 1011

~~ Also via live webcast and OTN video-conference ~~Program Description

This presentation will go over a historical overview of European contact with Aboriginal people and show how introduction to illness where there was no immunity by Aboriginal people, and how the Aboriginal health practices were interfered with. The presentation will address how we are trying to recover from these illnesses and diseases, where some of them are running rampant throughout our communities (i.e.: diabetes).

Objectives
By the end of the program:

1. Participants will gain knowledge about the history of Aboriginal colonization and its linkages to Aboriginal health.
2. Participants will be gain cultural sensitivity.
3. Participants will learn to adjust their current practices to meet the needs of Aboriginal people.

Facilitator

Leroy Little Bear has himself become an institution. This veteran educator and renowned academic is a model for all Aboriginals striving for success in higher learning. The founder of the Native American Studies Department at the University of Lethbridge – where he served as Chair for 21 years – also went on to become the founding Director of Harvard University’s Native American Program. He’s co-authored three texts – Pathways to Self-Determination: Native Indian Leaders Perspectives on Self-Government, Quest for Justice: Aboriginal Rights in Canada, and, Governments in Conflict: Provinces and Indian Nations in Canada – and helped write Justice on Trial, the report of Alberta’s Task Force on the Criminal Justice System and Its Impacts on the Indian and Métis Peoples of Alberta. A member of the Blackfoot Confederacy, Little Bear contributed to publications for the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in the area of criminal justice issues, did the same for the Assembly of First Nations on constitutional issues and has provided legal advice to numerous Aboriginal organizations on land claims, treaties and hunting and fishing rights. He is now recognized as one of the continent’s leaders in the advancement and acceptance of North American Indian philosophy. When he began his studies in the 1960s he quickly determined he wasn’t attending university for himself. Instead, Leroy Little Bear did it for his people. “Educating Native students was my way of making a difference,” he says. “ If I can graduate ten or fifty Native students then that makes a big difference.” He has already succeeded.

Registration

By email: denise.adams[at]normed.ca
By phone: 705-662-7256
Deadline to register: Monday, March 22, 2010

This program meets the accreditation criteria of The College of Family Physicians of Canada and has been accredited for up to2 Mainpro-M1 credits as approved by the Continuing Education and Professional Development Office of the Northern Ontario School of Medicine.