Family Violence Initiative

COMPENDIUM OF PROMISING PRACTICES TO REDUCE VIOLENCE AND INCREASE SAFETY OF ABORIGINAL WOMEN IN CANADA

INTERACTIONS WITHIN COMMUNITIES

Healthy Relationships: Women

Program Name:

Medicine Bear Counselling Support & Elder Services

Organization/Community:

Ka Ni Kanichikh Inc

Location:

Winnipeg, Manitoba

Website:

www.kanikanichihk.ca

Goals and Objectives:

To reduce violence against Aboriginal women and girls by increasing the knowledge and tools that promote the health and strength of the family unit.

Target Group Description:

Women.

Program Description:

The program looks to ease and eliminate the isolation of the Aboriginal women who have lost a loved one to violence and provides Aboriginal traditional ways of looking at family and relating to loved ones. The program has worked with women to alleviate the factors that keep and feed the stigma of intergenerational shame. The Medicine Bear program uses the Medicine Wheel as a base approach and employs various group gatherings and sharing circles to help the women through their grief. They provide access to ceremonies and Elders, as well as helping those who need it, with the proper cultural protocols in traditional ceremonies.

Program Successes/Impact:

The program has increased public awareness regarding the issue of missing and murdered Aboriginal peoples and has helped reconcile family members of victims to the fact that they are not to blame.

Key Lessons/Challenges:

The most difficult program challenge is dealing with the shame that many Aboriginal women carry including dealing with the stigma and with various attitudes associated with mothers and daughters who have or are engaged in high-risk life-styles.

Program in operation since:

N/A.

Program:

Ongoing.