Program connects students with culture and traditions

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Reconnecting with traditional approaches to justice and peacemaking is the focus of a dynamic two-year diploma program-the Restorative Justice and Conflict Resolution program-being offered at Keewatin Community College.

"With this course, it's not just an education. It restores your Aboriginal identity. So many Aboriginal people don't know their identity, where they come from," said student Chantell Barker, 27.

"It restored mine. Now I understand the reasons why we have so many problems. It's got me thinking about what I can do to change them."

Students learn how they can change their circumstances by examining and learning from the past (the treaty process, for example), and by reconnecting with Aboriginal communities and with Elders. However, the program also includes an intensive look at the Western justice system. To not do so would be to ignore the changing face of justice in Canada today, said Dean Head, an Aboriginal lawyer and one of the program's instructors.

"Both systems are interfacing right now," said Head. "We have to extricate both systems and also see how they interface. Half the courses, therefore, are founded on the mainstream legal framework, with the other half structured around priority areas that emerged during consultations with both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal communities in the summer of 2001-restorative justice, community peacemaking, family conflict resolution and organizational conflict resolution."

Students are expected to jump right in with both feet, and once they get over the surprise of actually "doing" a concept instead of simply learning about it, they love it. The Elder interview project, undertaken in the context of family conflict resolution, is an example.

"We had the students interview Elders on OCN [Opaskwayak Cree Nation]. None of [the students] speak Cree. That's one thing we're trying to restore, because knowledge is passed down through language," explained Blanche Cowley-Head, also Aboriginal and a lawyer by training, and the program's other instructor.

"We had them work with an interpreter. The Elders did all their interviews in Cree. Learning content, language, law, protocols, it was a huge immersion situation."

The experience of having to go through an interpreter gave Barker insights into the difficulties Aboriginal people faced when the original treaties were being negotiated.

"It was educational. It give us a different interpretation of how the treaties were signed, and the problems they ran into due to a lack of communication."

Students were then able to take their new-found understanding of negotiation into the modern context in a role-playing exercise centred on resource ownership and management. Students assumed various roles, including that of First Nations, Manitoba Hydro, provincial government, federal government, mediators and interpreters.

For another project during their first year, students researched a number of northern Manitoba communities to compile community directories. The idea, Barker said, was to gather contact data for band councils, community businesses, health, education, employment and other community resources.

In addition to academics, students have been encouraged to look inside themselves and to relate the program to their own life experiences and where they want to go in life. That process has made a profound difference to Barker's personal goals and outlook.

Living by the seven laws-kindness, love, understanding, humility, forgiveness, honesty and acceptance-is now a guiding principle for her, she said. "I'm going to more sweats now. I smudge and I pray."

Barker has set her sights on applying for an internship in New Zealand once she's done her program, to see how restorative justice is being applied in the Maori culture there.