Health issues discussed

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The Third Gathering on Aboriginal Health will be held Oct. 4 to 6 at the Sheraton Cavalier Hotel in Calgary.

"It's a national conference that brings together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal health service providers, health professionals, to really look at Aboriginal health issues," said Kim Kiyawafew, co-chair of the conference planning committee. "Our theme this year is Our Journey: Past, Present and Future. One of the kind of goals of the Aboriginal Health Council is we wanted to start looking at youth issues and how to address youth and that's what we looked at is looking towards the future. So we do have a number of youth presenters coming in, some local and some from other provinces."

Donna Lentjes, manager of the Regional Aboriginal Health Program for the Calgary Health Region, will be co-presenting at the conference in a session called Aboriginal Child and Youth Health: Grounding Best Practices in Community Consultation.

"We know that there are a lot of issues around health for Aboriginal people, but we also know that the Aboriginal community itself has much to contribute in terms of advancing health for everybody, as well as their own community," said Lentjes. "I think [the conference] will be a development and strengthening of existing networks and building new ones, but also I think it's learning from each other and the knowledge of how far the community has come and the hope for the future."

Kiyawafew said she hopes the conference will attract youth to careers in health because they are going to be the ones to lead the way in the future.

"This year we have for the first time offered student rates and that's to compliment and really look at encouraging youth to look at health and health careers. That's what we wanted when we sent the call out is people to talk about health careers," said Kiyawafew.

Some of the other sessions being offered will cover such topics as gambling addictions, diabetes and suicide in Aboriginal communities.

"In addition, we also have what's called An Evening With The Elders. That's where we get some Elders to come in and just talk about health and health issues and it's just a forum for people to listen to what the Elders have to say. That was really successful last time, so we wanted to build on that and have that again this year," said Kiyawafew. "When you come to our conference you'll see different dynamics and groups. It's a chance to see what everybody is doing."