Shared Spaces to tackle racism

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Alberta's capital city has a high Aboriginal student drop-out rate and the Northern Alberta Alliance on Race Relations (NAARR) wants to do something about it.

In a recent study on race relations and equity in Edmonton schools, NAARR found that visible minorities, including Indigenous peoples, experience systemic racism that leads to frustration among parents and a higher drop out rates among students.

The same study found that teachers had lower expectations for Aboriginal students than their non-Aboriginal peers and often mislabeled Aboriginal students as learning disabled.

Marie Gervais of NAARR said parents often feel the brunt of this prejudice, and a lack of communication between parents and schools starts a downward spiral in parent-school relations.

"If you had difficulties in two schools and you go to the third school and you're already mad, but that third school doesn't know you, they think you're a dangerous parent. Which is wrong ... you're just a parent who hasn't been listened to, right? But they don't know that," said Gervais.

That is why NAARR has decided to run a support group for Aboriginal parents of school-aged children called Shared Spaces. The support group provides a forum for discouraged parents to discuss their concerns about the schools.

"We would like to engage people who would like to start the process of healing of that rift because if one's first experience of life in the general society is that negative, it can't get that much better. It's a hard struggle to climb out of that and to constantly be positive," said Gervais.

Several prominent people in the Aboriginal community will join the focus group, including Elders and those working within the school system. Among those are Ken Ealey, who runs the Aboriginal program for the Edmonton Catholic School Board, and Rose Riley, an advocacy worker and supporter of Aboriginal parents.

"[Edmonton] had at the time of the study the second highest urban Aboriginal population in schools, but now we have the highest. That's how fast the Aboriginal population is growing in Edmonton. So we really have to seriously consider that."

The support group meets the first Monday and third Wednesday of each month at 7 p.m. in room 218 at the Sacred Heart school at 9624-108 Ave.