Play sheds light on issues of disabled

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The efforts of a Winnipeg woman to help Aboriginal people with disabilities access training, education and employment were officially recognized at an awards ceremony held Oct. 13

Frances Sinclair was one of seven recipients of this year's Manitoba Access Achievement Awards, sponsored by the Province of Manitoba and the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities. The awards were handed out at the Manitoba legislature by Tim Sale, provincial minister responsible for persons with disabilities. Sinclair received the award in the public education and training category.

A Cree woman who was born without hands, Sinclair knows the dual challenges facing Aboriginal people with disabilities, having to deal not only with the challenges related to their disability, but also the obstacles placed before them because they are Aboriginal. After experiencing the gaps that exist in services provided for Aboriginal people with disabilities, Sinclair set to work to try to close some of those gaps.

In 1996, Sinclair founded the Aboriginal Disabled Self-Help Group, the first group of its kind in Manitoba. The group works to motivate Aboriginal people with disabilities through self-help activities, and does presentations to employers, non-profit organizations and communities, providing information on the needs, strengths and aspirations of Aboriginal people with disabilities.

Sinclair's latest project has been a joint effort between the Aboriginal Disabled Self-Help Group and the Centre for Aboriginal Human Resource Development (CAHRD), and has involved the hiring of Aboriginal people with disabilities to work as employment counsellors at CAHRD. The program started with two employment counsellors being hired, but has now expanded to include three counsellors.

"And all these three people have disabilities, but they also have, of course, the skills and the qualification and education. So they are employment counsellors specifically to work with the disabled Aboriginal for further employment, training and educational challenges," Sinclair said.

With a growing population of Aboriginal people with disabilities, Sinclair explained, more must be done to help this segment of the population obtain meaningful employment.

"Our group, our Aboriginal disabled, according to statistics and reports . . . we outnumber any disabled group there is and . . . here in Manitoba, we outnumber any minority group there is. And yet, with this large population of our group - disabled Aboriginal - we are less than two per cent (in 1997 it was less than one per cent) - fully employed," Sinclair said. "So if there's less than one per cent of seventeen, eighteen thousand by now, maybe even 19,000 by now, then who's looking after the rest of this group? It's people's tax dollars. So, if they're going to be - the chiefs or leaders or so forth - going to be investing money into all these programs, then put a few more programs to include the disabled, so therefore they get that training too, and they get that incentive and support."

Sinclair's efforts to improve the situation for Aboriginal people with disabilities have also taken a more artistic turn, seeing Sinclair author and produce the play, Breaking New Ground.

The play, first performed in 1998, is scheduled for three new performances at Colin Jackson Theatre at Portage Place on Nov. 24 and 25.

The story revolves around a young disabled Aboriginal girl and her relationships with her father, who is overprotective and underestimates what she is capable of, and her grandmother, who acts as a mediator between father and daughter, supporting and encouraging the girl. The play, Sinclair explained, uses both humor and "tearful moments" to "really draw the audience in."

The cast of this production of Breaking New Ground is made up of people with physical and invisible disabilities, and all but one cast member is Aboriginal. The cast members were chosen, Sinclair said, to serve as positive role models, showing te audience Aboriginal people with disabilities who have accomplished much with their lives. Sinclair herself, in addition to all her volunteer work, is employed full time with the provincial government.

"What I wanted, first of all, which was important to me, was to select people with disabilities that are doing things in their life, that are fully employed or going to school or so forth. So all the people in the play, all of us are full-time employees. And there's one of the girls who is disabled who is working full-time as a disabled Aboriginal employment counsellor, and she's going for her masters. And the other counsellor, as well, has got her degree. So we're all doing something. We've all done positive stuff with our lives," Sinclair said.

Sinclair hopes the play will be made into a video.