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Winnipeg, Man.
Diverse partnership to promote healing in victims of residential schools


Three aboriginal groups and Mennonite Central Committee are working together on a project to promote healing among people who were abused in residential schools that operated in Canada.

“It’s about partners,” says Wilma Derksen, director of MCC Canada’s Victims’ Voice program. “The people we are helping to bring together have little in common from a faith perspective, but they share a strong desire to find solutions to the problems of substance abuse, suicide and serious crime in native communities. That abuse stems from what took place in residential schools.”

Derksen says MCC was first approached in May 1998 by an elder from the Winnipeg native community to promote the concept of healing in the light of past injustices. “She was familiar with what we had been doing at MCC through the publication Pathways (a healing journal for victims of homicide),” says Derksen. “She knew about some of our experiences. She felt we would be able to help provide a forum for discussion.”

The three participating aboriginal organizations are:

Ganootamaage Justice Services, Inc., a restorative justice organization that addresses offender needs in the context of traditional aboriginal faith; Pikangikum First Nation, a conservative Christian reserve of about 2000 residents in northwestern Ontario; and The Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Resource Centre, a United Church-affiliated training and retreat centre located in Beausejour, Man.

Grants from the federal government’s Aboriginal Healing Foundation – totalling $38,000 so far – will go towards sponsoring 10 meetings or “circles” over the course of the next year. Another $115,000 in funding is available for the other three partners. Ganootamaage has hired a researcher to locate and interview victims of crime within the aboriginal community in Winnipeg. The Dr. Jessie Saulteaux Centre will provide a counsellor with experience in suicide prevention and offer training to students from various aboriginal communities in western Canada. Pikangikum will hire a healing project coordinator who will oversee a comprehensive healing program, of which this current initiative is part.

“The AHF will be funding the bulk of the work,” says Derksen. “We and our partners are helping with other ‘in-kind’ support of nearly $20,000.” The federal government has set aside $350 million to be distributed by the AHF over 10 years. It funds proposals that address residential school abuse and its effect on individuals, as well as on their children and grandchildren.

The three partner organizations will meet together with Victims’ Voice to share what they have learned. Derksen says the group has already met, and the tone has been positive. Derksen went into the first meetings thinking she already understood the issues, but says her perspective has changed. “That meeting highlighted, to me, how little we really know about residential school issues,” she says. “An elder at the meeting said we all need to be both students and teachers in order for this project to work. I think we will all benefit as long as we keep listening to what the others bring to the table.”

Derksen says their long-term goal is to develop appropriate services to meet victims’ needs. She says it may be difficult to measure effectiveness over the short term. “We know it will take time, but it is our hope that we would eventually see a reduction in suicide, addictive behaviours and family violence,” says Derksen. “We often talk about offenders of violent crimes but we are only starting to talk about the victims of violent crimes.”

 – MCC Canada release

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Last modified November 30, 2001.

© 2001 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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