Top News - September - 2002 Published September 23, 2002 Brendan Joseph of Big River travelled to Alberta last month to take part in the Kehewin Powwow held on Aug. 25. Photo by Janusz Zalewski Conference to look at negative effects of gaming Funding announced to help the homeless Make schools welcoming, says Native professor This is only a partial listing of the stories featured in the September 2002 issue of Saskatchewan Sage. If you are not receiving your own copy of Sage, then you have missed out on a lot. Click here for Saskatchewan Sage subscription information. Conference to look at negative effects of gaming Cheryl Petten, Sage Writer, Prince Albert Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority to hold the first-ever national conference to look at the issue of problem gambling in Canada's Aboriginal community. Alice Marchand is program manager of Prince Albert Grand Council (PAGC) problem gambling program. She explained the PAGC has been working with other organizations from across Canada for the past two years, trying to coordinate this conference as a forum for First Nations people to come together, talk, and share their experiences. The conference will be held in Prince Albert from Nov. 5 to 7, attracting both attendees and presenters from across Canada and the United States. Among the scheduled presenters are William Eadington, a professor of economics and gaming at the University of Reno, Nev., who himself has organized 12 conferences on gambling, and Durand F. Jacobs, from Redlands, Calif., who has a diploma in clinical psychology and who established the first in-patient program for compulsive gamblers in the United States in 1972. Jacobs has also conducted research on the issue of problem gambling among Native Americans. "They're not First Nation, but we are not attempting to attract First Nation presenters. We don't have them," Marchand said, adding that Eadington and Jacobs have "both been involved since the inception of the involvement of First Nations people in the gaming industry." While the conference will have a First Nations focus, the event is open to anyone wanting to attend, Marchand said. "It's that we focus on attracting the First Nations people because they're stuck in bingo halls. So the daily schedule that we're presenting in some aspect is going to generate some animosity for the major part of the population who chooses to remain in denial and sees bingo as a fundraiser, not as a gaming venue," she said. "We have three tracks. One is called research and education. The other one is called responsible gambling. And the third is treatment. "We are attempting to attract employers, employee and family assistance programmers, people who work in the addictions field, the health and medical profession, business, and people who work in the problem gambling field, and also problem gamblers. Because we do have a component in our program that is going to allow people who have experienced difficulties to actually speak and share. So it's a wide range. And the overview of the conference is to create and provide an awareness by the provision of information in those three tracks. We're also attracting the gaming industry, and that's through the responsible gambling component. "And actually, the Saskatchewan Indian Gaming Authority (SIGA) is sponsoring the conference. And playing a very key role in terms of its promotion and organizing, from a social aspect, taking responsibility for the fall-out. Because the gaming industry actually does bring what are called both positive and negative attributes. It brings to the consumer, to communities, and to government. And as the gaming venues themselves spread more from a land base to an interactive on-line base, we need to pay attention to the negative attributes because they are many," Marchand said. "The gaming industry benefits, and their intent is to take the money, not give it to you. And it robs very fast . . . so what our role is is to ensure that the social aspects are being balanced with the economic gain. Because the gaming industry, that's not what they're there for." The goal is for the conference to be an ongoing event, held every two years, Marchand said. In addition to hosting the conference on problem gambling, the PAGC will soon also be opening up the first problem gambling in-patient treatment centre in Canada, Marchand said. "It's the first centre which is specifically for problem gambling," she said, indicating that while addictions recovery centres like Poundmaker's Lodge in St. Albert, Alta. and the Walter A. "Slim" Thorpe Recovery Centre in Lloydminster have added gambling-related programming alongside their existing alcohol and drug treatment programs, the Prince Albert centre will deal only with problem gambling. "We are specifically problem gambling. We are not taking any of the other addictive disorders. And we're approaching things a little differently in terms of looking at the past research, looking at where we're going. And it's got no interaction with addiction. We're looking specifically at the impact of the gaming industry. " For more information about the First National Aboriginal Problem Gambling Awareness 2002 Conference, visit the PAGC Web site at www.pagc.sk.ca, or call 765-5305. Top Funding announced to help the homeless Sage Staff Seven Regina homelessness projects will receive just over $729,000 in funding as part of the National Homelessness Initiative. Aman House Inc. will receive $21,000 to train its staff in proposal writing and partnership building, as well to help the organization identify priority activities and establish a plan for long-term sustainability of it's homelessness activities. The project, established in 1995, provides services for Aboriginal people infected with HIV, housing six to 12 people each year. Over $220,000 will be used to establish Kids First Day Care Centre Inc. at Cochrane high school. The new day care will allow young parents the opportunity to return to and complete high school. It will also offer support services and parenting classes. Cornwall Alternative School will also receive over $220, 000 for building repairs, the purchase of equipment, and outreach services. The school offers classes to 34 students between ages 12 and 16 who have behavioral issues, drug or alcohol related problems, poor attendance and other personal difficulties. Ehrlo Community Services, which operates a 48-unit apartment complex for single parents and low-income families, will receive $73,000 to help it establish the Young Parent Program, a transitional housing facility for young parents. First Avenue Child Care, operating since April, is a partnership between Market Square Day Care and the Food Bank. The majority of the children in the program come from single parent families, and many of the parents are aged 15 to 24 and are at risk of becoming homeless. The daycare centre will receive $116,000 to buy furniture, equipment, floor coverings and a van and to cover the first 12 months of its rent and utility costs. Mobile Crisis Services, which responds to about 55 calls a day and has provided social and health crisis intervention services since 1974, will receive $54,700, allowing the project to continue to operate for another year. Street Culture Kidz Project Inc.'s participants use arts, business and life skills programming to develop interesting and exciting programs for their peers. With just over $21,000 in new funding announced, the project will work to increase public awareness of the problem of youth homelessness in Regina. Top Make schools welcoming, says Native professor Stephen LaRose, Sage Writer, Fort Qu'Appelle August 28 was back to school day in the Fort Qu'Appelle area, and not just for the students. More than 100 teachers, administrators, and school representatives came to the Treaty 4 Governance Centre to discuss ways to improve the lot of Aboriginal children in the school system. Those school systems will be facing a large overhaul - in attitudes as much as anything else - if Aboriginal students are going to succeed in the school system. That was the message delivered by Dr. Martin Brokenleg, a professor of Native American studies at Augustana College, in Sioux Falls, S.D., during the day-long seminar. Dr. Brokenleg, a member of South Dakota's Rosebud Sioux Nation, said that high drop-out rates by Aboriginal people in the school system indicate that the school system isn't working. When children enter school, they learn more than their ABC or number facts, he said. They learn-by accident or by design-about the cultural conflict between their lives at home and the lives described at school. "Did you learn to read at school through the Dick and Jane books?" he asked. "Did your mother wear a nice blue dress and wear heels when she was at home? Did your father wear a suit and tie to work? Not if you grew up on the reservation. Not if you grew up on a farm." The "Dick and Jane" series was and is the first clue that the North American educational system was designed for non-Aboriginal, middle-class people, he said. And those who don't fit in-from Aboriginal people to recent immigrants-will face a tough time at school. For example, many traditional Aboriginal values, such as generosity and respect for the earth, come into conflict with a value system of western society, in which accumulating wealth at the expense of everything else is its main goal. As well, the parents of Aboriginal children have gone through a residential school system that tried to destroy their culture, he said. That system also soured Aboriginal people on the educational system. Aboriginal children are also more likely to live in a home "in crisis"-where alcohol, drug abuse, or abuse is a part of life. "In most instances, what's being done is the exact opposite of what should be done," he said. "In a crisis, a child should be surrounded by special support: the support of adults, the support of peers, family and community, so the child can function once again the way he or she did before the crisis. "What most schools do, however, is respond in the opposite way, by using 'un-belonging'-suspensions, expulsions-which result in the opposite effect of what is intended. "It's not so much a 'drop-out' as a 'push-out,' that kids see that there's nothing else to do but to leave, to save their sense of self, because their sense of self is so threatened by the 'get-tough' approaches most schools adopt." The end result, according to Dr. Brokenleg, is a school system that isn't prepared to teach and pupils who aren't prepared to learn. The dropout rate of western Canadian Aboriginal youth has been a long-time headache for First Nations organizations and education officials. In the American education system, the figures look even bleaker. Ninety-eight per cent of all Aboriginal children in American schools don't graduate. In fact, 48 per cent drop out by the time they're in the eighth grade, said Dr. Brokenleg. "It was thought to have been indicative of Aboriginal youth's inability to function in the education system," he said. "In fact, it's a function of the schools' inability to provide the right kind of environment for youth." The solution, he said is a school system that better reflects the cultures of the children who attend. "That's to say that teaching lessons are taught but the concepts being taught are being drawn from the real community-not just from the Native community or the white community . . . so the material the kids see is something that's coming from Canadian society. "A multi-cultural style of education will go a long way to reduce the alienation some children from other cultures feel-the alienation that eventually forces them out of the education system. "We're seeing a real shift in the psyche of schools . . . that schools see that it is much more in their self interest to provide a positive setting for youth." Top