Quiet, shy student wins raves for radio program

An award-winning radio show, Healing Perspectives, spearheaded by a group of Indigenous Studies students at Victoria’s Camosun College, is diversifying the talk show genre by mirroring a traditional healing circle on air.
The groundbreaking weekly one hour spot currently airing on Camosun’s radio station, CKMO, won the Outstanding Achievement Award in the Aboriginal Affairs and Cultural programming category from the National Campus and Community Radio Association (NCRA). The award was announced on June 11.

The show’s moderator, Trevor Day, a 30-year-old First Nations member of the Secwepemc Tribe from the Bonaparte Band in Cache Creek, says the genesis of the project was a healing circle class he was taking that “made him feel connected to his culture for the first time.”

Being a quiet, shy type of person made it sometimes too difficult to express important things he felt he should share, he said.

“The loud people aren’t drowning you out, so as a quieter person I found that I really did have valuable things to say,” explained Day of the in-class experience.
Day said he and some classmates fell in love with the process and wanted to mirror the traditional discussion on the radio.

The talk show format often features “a panel of people bickering. It’s never this kind of holistic inclusive thing,” said Day, noting the transition into the studio worked well.

That transition wouldn’t have been possible without Day himself, according to the CKOM station manager, and Healing Perspectives advocate, Brad Edwards.

“If you are going to run a successful program, a credible program, you need somebody from that community to spearhead that,” said Edwards.

“When Trevor came in, within the first 20 minutes I said to myself “This is the guy.”

Edwards noted Day’s demeanor, knowledge, expertise, patience, leadership in reference to the build up of the show, saying the 30-year-old played a major role in the development of the program.

This is a type of programming you cannot get anywhere else,” said Edwards.

“Yes, other radio stations have different levels of Aboriginal programming, but the uniqueness of the healing circle and the power of that has really reached out within the community.”

Healing Perspectives began in February and aired 12 one-hour episodes in its first season.

Each week, six or seven guests joined Day, who started by asking the group to introduce themselves and then moved the focus to an around-the-circle conversation.
The show’s success relies on two rules: only one person may speak at a time, and each person gets a turn to speak without interruption.

Very little post-production editing was done, in order to preserve the integrity of comments shared within the circle.

Day says the focus was on “inclusion, not the product,” explaining traditionally First Nations people focus on consensus decision making.

“Everyone does get heard; they try and make decisions without people getting left out,” he said.

“(The show’s) got the principle of collective inclusion.”

Edwards said a market for this type of show might seem hard-pressed in the contemporary “narrowly focused” radio world, but said if done in the right way it could fly.

Edwards said broadcasting companies need to open up and look at the benefits of this kind of programming and what it can do, not just for them, but for the Aboriginal community.

Day reiterated the sentiments in regards to a bigger market for the show saying it would be nice to offer it on a broader scale and see what the response is.

“The conversation we have on the radio is very personal, so it would really depend. I think we are talking about universal truth, said Day.

“But I wouldn’t want to jam it down people’s throats.”