Nanaimo woman recognized for community building

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Grace Elliott-Nielsen has talked with visionaries, world leaders, drug addicts, movie stars, displaced people, and kings. She is at home in a longhouse or a palace. When she received the Order of British Columbia, the province's highest honor, Elliott-Nielsen was called a visionary and was cited for developing programs to meet the needs of the Aboriginal community and for starting the first Aboriginal health centre in the province. She was also one of the founding members of the Aboriginal components of the Building Better Babies program in Nanaimo. That program has now spread to 32 urban centres in British Columbia and 623 across Canada.

Elliott-Nielsen never expected fame or recognition. She has devoted her life to others because she believes the earth can be a better place, that all things are connected, and that all things are important. Each person can only do a small piece to effect change, she said. Her life, she added, has been about working on her small section of a giant patchwork quilt.

She learned much of her philosophy of life from her father, Norman Elliot.

"Some things that happened were good, some were not," he told her. "But if people work hard enough they can bring back the spirit of the good things and learn from the bad experiences."

Elliott-Nielsen kept his words in her heart even when the children at her school in Ladysmith called her a "dirty Indian" and beat her.

"I felt fear but I don't ever remember hating any of them," she said. "I decided that no children should suffer what I was suffering-no matter who those children were-and I would do what I could so that they didn't have to."

Elliott-Nielsen trained to be a nurse and then a counsellor. She worked with youths and was often given the toughest cases-but no matter how difficult the people she worked with, she treated them all with respect.

In 1973, Elliott-Nielsen was asked to help out the Tillicum Haus Native Friendship Centre, which had been created to serve youths who had come from reserves to the city for an education. When she attended a meeting she discovered that Tillicum Haus was in deep financial trouble and on the verge of shutting down. She became president and went to work rebuilding the centre, keeping in mind her father's advice.

Within two years Tillicum Haus was named the best Native friendship centre in British Columbia.

In 1979, Elliott-Nielsen became the centre's social worker and began to attend meetings of the provincial association of Native friendship centres, which operated under the auspices of the Ministry of Children and Families. She was instrumental in bringing the centres under Aboriginal governance.

In 1980, she became executive director of Tillicum Haus and helped create the Building Better Babies program, which welcomed all families from the community.

"The Native friendship centre was never limited to Natives," Elliott-Nielsen said.

"I saw that a lot of people were falling through the gaps and those people's needs were not being addressed by social services. We had pregnant women coming in who weren't well and couldn't see a doctor. The need was there."

The board agreed with her vision and developed a mission statement that promises justice and equality for all Aboriginal people and to meet the needs of all people in the community.

Elliott-Nielsen's influence began to be felt all across the province wherever Native health was at stake.

In 1990, Mikhail Gorbachev invited her to attend the annual State of the World Conference in San Francisco, of which he was one of the chairmen. The invitation recognized her contribution to the field of holistic health.

In 2000, Elliott-Nielsen received the Order of British Columbia. The certificate hangs on her wall next to her honorary doctorate of laws from Malaspina University College and the 125th Commemorative Award from the Governor General of Canada for outstanding contribution to the country.

When Elliott-Nielsen started school, she was afraid o talk to anyone. Now she is comfortable with heads of state. When she came to Nanaimo there were no Native treatment centres. Today her community is growing strong and healthy and Tillicum Haus is a shining example to the rest of the world.