Healing lodge meets needs

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During the cool hours of a prairie dawn, land for a healing lodge for women was recently blessed by Elders, marking the first step in an historic move towards meetings the needs of Aboriginal women prisoners.

Elders of Nekaneet Band gathered for the sunrise ceremony at Cypress Hills

June 8 to prepare the land for the construction of a healing lodge for federally-sentenced Aboriginal women. A feast and a powwow at the reserve, 30 kilometres south of maple Creek, took place afterward. Later that day Chief Glen Oakes met with the commissioner of the Correctional Services of Canada, John Edwards, to sign a memorandum of agreement for the land designation for the lodge.

The creation of a healing lodge was recommended by a 1990 Task Force Report on Federally Sentenced Women which found a disproportionate amount of Aboriginal women represented in prison. The 30-bed lodge is part of a national initiative to replace the Kingston, Ontario Prison for Women with regional facilities, but is distinct from other prisons. The lodge will offer programming and a correctional environment in keeping with Aboriginal culture and traditions.

The healing lodge signifies a milestone for the government of Canada in the treatment of Aboriginal women, said Solicitor General Herb Gray.

"To look at the background of Aboriginal women in prison is to look at the background of Aboriginal women in society at large," Gray said in a message to the participant of the signing.

The lodge is about one year behind schedule due to changes in local and federal governments, said Edie Dean with the healing lodge planning committee. Construction on the lodge will begin in July and is expected to be completed by August 1995.