Hope and courage from conference

Page 17

The National Indigenous Sexual Abuse Conference hosted by the Mikisew Cree First Nation of Fort Chipewyan on Feb. 10 to 13. More than 1,400 people gathered to take part in a number of workshops and to hear some of the country's most experienced facilitators on the topic of sexual abuse.

Steering committee chairperson Steve Courtoreille, who lives in Fort Chipewyan, said the conference went extremely well.

"In so many ways, I think the success that was most noticeable was the amount of participants that showed up, the workshops, and all that participated, the opening and closing ceremonies and the evening dinner shows," he said.

Courtoreille recalls when they were approached with the idea to host the conference. He admited it took a while for them to come up with an answer on whether to go forward since the topic of sexual abuse is often looked at in society as something you did not discuss.

"This conference was not just for people being sexually abused in residential schools, but it was also for people who've been abused in their own homes. They also need to be recognized, in how they should take steps for them to move on in their lives, to find the tools to work on what sexual abuse did to them and also from where it stemmed from. And most time it's stemmed from the residential school and carried on from one generation to the next and it has to stop.

"The comments that kept coming, thanking us for doing something about it, for taking a first step and that kind of thing, so it was good. I think everyone worked together to make this conference happen. It was basically, whoever wanted to volunteer. As it progressed, more people came on board," he said.

"We have ongoing programs in the community that deal with residential school issues and sexual abuse is a spin-off from there. Because a lot of people talked about being sexually abused by the people who were suppose to be the next best thing to our Creator, the priests, brothers and sisters, and then it only made sense that we took that first step to do this. As far as we look at things from our leadership point of view, we look at we have to help our people move forward in their personal lives," he said.

Conference coordinator Alan Beaver said he received a lot of good feedback from people in the community who attended.

"I would like to commend the leadership of Fort Chipewyan for taking on such an important topic and we have a lot of support in place for the people who've disclosed their being abused, such as sharing circles, therapists and group in the community of Fort Chipewyan. Tentatively, we are looking at holding a conference like this one in April or May of next year," he said.