Care for our own

EDITORIAL

Page 6

Elsewhere on these pages, Bryan Fayant strongly encourages Native people to fight for their children rather than letting social workers take them away from them.

He points out that there are many rights and avenues to assist Native people in winning that fight.

His comments tie in closely with a growing concern in the Native community over the loss of their children, and those children's own loss of their Native identity and culture and the consequence that can result from the alienation they feel as a result of that loss.

An example of what is being done is the efforts of Metis Children's Services to educate Metis people on their rights and to find and train Metis foster parents.

"Care for our own" is the slogan Metis Children's Services is using in its campaign, and it is a slogan that echoes the main thrust of the new Child Welfare Act itself.

That act very clearly reflects the provincial government's policy that families should take responsibility for their own children, and that children should be raised by their own people in their own culture.

Unfortunately, it too often seems that no one told the provincal government employees directly responsible for children - the social workers, their supervisors, and the administrators in the Department of Social Services.

They're still performing from the perspective of their white middle class upbring-ing, unable or unwilling to consider that other cultures, lifestyles and values may be just as valid as their own even though provincial laws say they must do that.

The only way they will listen is if Native individuals and communities use those laws to fight for their rights, and if they fight in a determined, orderly and unified fashion.

We've already clearly seen the disastrous consequences when Native children are pressed into a non-Native mold, forced to assimilate into an alien culture.

And the results have been particularly tragic where children have been shunted through a series of foster homes, many of them unfriendly to Native children and unfit for any child.

It has taken the terrible sacrifice of youngsters like Richard Cardinal, who committed suicide at 17, to create changes in the selection and supervision of foster homes, but there are still far too many abuses.

The real solution, of course, is for the Native community to offer a better alternative. While there has been some effort in that direction, far too little has been done for there to be a real alternative.

Maybe, as Fayant says, that 's because people are intimidated by the authoritarian figure of the social worker. Maybe, as he also says, it's because the problem isn't given a high enough priority by Native individuals, communities and organizations.

Whatever the reason Native children will continue to suffer until something is done.

That is unacceptable.

Nothing is more valuable than human life, than our children and the future they represent.

No matter what it takes, action must be taken for their sake.