Program brings Indigenous knowledge to health workers.

For the past 16 years, Suzanne Brant has been studying traditional medicine, learning from Elders and other members of Haudenosaunee communities. Starting in January, First Nations health practitioners will be able to share in the knowledge Brant has gathered through a new program offered by the First Nations Technical Institute (FNTI).

The Indigenous Community Health Worker program, or Enionkwatakariteke, is a one-year post-diploma program open to First Nations people who already possess a diploma or degree in a health-related field.

The program will be broken up into eight one-week, in-class sessions at FNTI located on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory. The first class is scheduled to begin Jan. 26, 2004, with the final class to run in December 2004.

The process of putting the course together started about three years ago, Brant said, when she started to take a serious look at the health of First Nations communities.

"And I realized that we have a lot of higher rates of cancer, high rates of diabetes, and we don't use any of our traditional practices for the most part. I mean we do, but not to the extent that we could to help prevent different diseases."

Brant wanted to come up with a way to share the knowledge she had about traditional medicine, and developing a training program seemed to be the logical approach, she explained.

"I thought it was really important, rather than trying to do clinical work with people, to actually duplicate myself through some form of education process. So I sat down with the First Nations Technical Institute; they thought it was a great idea."

A program advisory committee was set up to help develop the curriculum, which consists of 12 courses that focus on how Indigenous knowledge can be used to improve the health of First Nations people.

"We'll be looking at creation, so the world view, our cosmology ... because that establishes our relationship to the natural world. We'll look at how that affects our health. We'll look at nutrition, so we'll look at traditional diet, how we eat cyclically and how those things actually provide us with different nutrients and different health processes, like detoxification. And also about keeping our bodies healthy," Brant said.

"We look at traditional medicines, so the use of different plants. We also look at the Haudenosaunee thanksgiving address. So again, looking at our roles and duties and responsibilities as human beings to the natural world, and how we fit in that natural world and our responsibilities to the ceremonies. So we look at the ceremonial practices as well. We don't conduct them, but we do look at them. We look at colonization and how that's impacted our health, the stress factors and how that's impacted on our culture, our whole foundation.

"We look at history of health and healing. So we look at traditional methods, we look at Western approaches and their philosophies. We also look at environmental impact, so how our current practices in terms of the modern world, how they impact our environment, like chemical production and things, and how that's coming back and affecting our endocrine systems or the development of cancer, or any of those things," she said.

Brant said ceremonial cycles are also examined.

"How we conducted ourselves in terms of that relationship to the natural environment through the ceremonies. We look at our health, community health. And we actually have the students do a community profile. So they look at where their landfill sites are, where their waterways are, where their potential impacts may be. But then they also do sort of research on the bigger picture too, like how different diseases are greater in First Nations communities. And then we take a look at the economic impacts, cultural impacts."

As far as Suzanne Brant is aware, this is the only program of its kind being offered. One of the things that makes it unique is its meshing of the traditional approaches to health with Western approaches.

"What we really wanted to do was bring in the Western perspective, those things that are beneficial to us, like glucose monitoring. Or if you needed certain medical attention, that there are certain things in Western science that can be very beneficial. And what we've done is we've taken the Western approaches and brought in our traditional approaches and sort of, not integrated them, but how they could work together," she said.

The program will also encourage students to take a holistic approach to health care, and not just the Western approach of treating the physical symptoms, Brant said.

"That's one of the things we address, is that not all sicknesses stem from just the physical. They all come from the emotional, mental and spiritual aspects too. And so we want people to be aware that, you know, Western approaches are very much about just symptoms and physical, addressing those things," she said. "And we want to say, 'Wait, you know, things like diabetes have a very emotional connection to them.' Like we say, there's a loss of sweetness for life. You know, our culture, our language, all those things. It's no wonder that we have high epidemics of diabetes, because those are our sweetness for life. That's what we understand. So those are the things that we address."

The students will get a chance to apply what they have learned by creating their own personal wellness plan, examining their own spiritual, emotional, mental and physical wellness, and trying to determine how they could use things such as traditional medicines and traditional diets to improve their health.

While the aim of the program is to share knowledge about traditional health practices with the students, it is also to increase their awareness that these practices exist, and are available to them and their patients, Brant explained.

"One of the things that we're hoping to do through this program is help healthcare professionals realize that there are Elders in the community that have this kind of knowledge. Not them do the healing or not them practise the cultural ways, but at least be aware of who can. If it's a ceremony that needs to be done, if it's a particular medicine that needs to be prepared, at least they'll be better aware of who's available in the community, and why it's important to have those linkages. Again it's about building relationships."

While the new program has garnered a lot of interest, there are still some openings in the intake starting up in January. And if interest is high enough, a second intake in April may be opened up to meet the demand.

For more information about the Indigenous Community Health Worker program, visit the FNTI Web site at www.tyendinaga.net, or e-mail your questions to Brant at [e-mail], or call FNTI at 1-800-263-4220, or 613-396-3100.

By Cheryl Petten

Windspeaker Staff Writer

TYENDINAGA MOHAWK

TERRITORY, Ont.