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Play sheds light
on issues of disabled
By Cheryl Petten
Windspeaker Contributor
WINNIPEG
The efforts of a Winnipeg woman to help Aboriginal people
with disabilities access training, education and employment were
officially recognized at an awards ceremony held Oct. 13
Frances Sinclair was one of seven recipients of this year's Manitoba
Access Achievement Awards, sponsored by the Province of Manitoba
and the Manitoba League of Persons with Disabilities. The awards
were handed out at the Manitoba legislature by Tim Sale, provincial
minister responsible for persons with disabilities. Sinclair
received the award in the public education and training category.
A Cree woman who was born without hands, Sinclair knows the dual
challenges facing Aboriginal people with disabilities, having
to deal not only with the challenges related to their disability,
but also the obstacles placed before them because they are Aboriginal.
After experiencing the gaps that exist in services provided for
Aboriginal people with disabilities, Sinclair set to work to
try to close some of those gaps.
In 1996, Sinclair founded the Aboriginal Disabled Self-Help Group,
the first group of its kind in Manitoba. The group works to motivate
Aboriginal people with disabilities through self-help activities,
and does presentations to employers, non-profit organizations
and communities, providing information on the needs, strengths
and aspirations of Aboriginal people with disabilities.
Sinclair's latest project has been a joint effort between the
Aboriginal Disabled Self-Help Group and the Centre for Aboriginal
Human Resource Development (CAHRD), and has involved the hiring
of Aboriginal people with disabilities to work as employment
counsellors at CAHRD. The program started with two employment
counsellors being hired, but has now expanded to include three
counsellors.
"And all these three people have disabilities, but they
also have, of course, the skills and the qualification and education.
So they are employment counsellors specifically to work with
the disabled Aboriginal for further employment, training and
educational challenges," Sinclair said.
With a growing population of Aboriginal people with disabilities,
Sinclair explained, more must be done to help this segment of
the population obtain meaningful employment.
"Our group, our Aboriginal disabled, according to statistics
and reports . . . we outnumber any disabled group there is and
. . . here in Manitoba, we outnumber any minority group there
is. And yet, with this large population of our group - disabled
Aboriginal - we are less than two per cent (in 1997 it was less
than one per cent) - fully employed," Sinclair said. "So
if there's less than one per cent of seventeen, eighteen thousand
by now, maybe even 19,000 by now, then who's looking after the
rest of this group? It's people's tax dollars. So, if they're
going to be - the chiefs or leaders or so forth - going to be
investing money into all these programs, then put a few more
programs to include the disabled, so therefore they get that
training too, and they get that incentive and support."
Sinclair's efforts to improve the situation for Aboriginal people
with disabilities have also taken a more artistic turn, seeing
Sinclair author and produce the play, Breaking New Ground.
The play, first performed in 1998, is scheduled for three new
performances at Colin Jackson Theatre at Portage Place on Nov.
24 and 25.
The story revolves around a young disabled Aboriginal girl and
her relationships with her father, who is overprotective and
underestimates what she is capable of, and her grandmother, who
acts as a mediator between father and daughter, supporting and
encouraging the girl. The play, Sinclair explained, uses both
humor and "tearful moments" to "really draw the
audience in."
The cast of this production of Breaking New Ground is made up
of people with physical and invisible disabilities, and all but
one cast member is Aboriginal. The cast members were chosen,
Sinclair said, to serve as positive role models, showing the
audience Aboriginal people with disabilities who have accomplished
much with their lives. Sinclair herself, in addition to all her
volunteer work, is employed full time with the provincial government.
"What I wanted, first of all, which was important to me,
was to select people with disabilities that are doing things
in their life, that are fully employed or going to school or
so forth. So all the people in the play, all of us are full-time
employees. And there's one of the girls who is disabled who is
working full-time as a disabled Aboriginal employment counsellor,
and she's going for her masters. And the other counsellor, as
well, has got her degree. So we're all doing something. We've
all done positive stuff with our lives," Sinclair said.
Sinclair hopes the play will be made into a video.
Climb to better health
could be a real cliff-hanger
By Paul Melting Tallow
Windspeaker Contributor
SUCKER CREEK, Alta.
Mount Everest is a long, long way from the Sucker Creek Reserve
in northern Alberta but the world's highest mountain is where
Laurie Gaucher is heading in the spring of the year 2000 as part
of the Native American Alpine Team.
The team, assembled by Gaucher, will be the first comprised
of New Zealand, North and Central American Aboriginal people
to climb to the top of the world.
"We call it the Ascent of the Aboriginal Spirit Expedition,"
Gaucher said.
Currently, the team is made up of a Cree from Saskatchewan,
two Aboriginal people from Ecuador, a Mapuche from Chile and
a Moari from New Zealand, with hopes of soon having a minimum
of eight climbers for Everest.
Gaucher began climbing mountains in 1978, with Everest as
his ultimate challenge and dream.
"I actually dreamed about this when I was six,"
he said. "A lot of the things that I dreamed when I was
six years old have already come to pass; getting into skydiving,
mountaineering and becoming a commercial pilot," Gaucher.
All that was almost lost in a freak accident four years ago,
however.
While working for a fuel delivery service in 1994, he fell
from a holding tank, shattering his body.
Knowing he was paralyzed from the neck down, Gaucher feared
he would never be able to fly or skydive again and would never
see the world from the summit of Everest.
"Looking at my body laying there all tangled up at that
moment I thought it would never happen," he said.
A year-and-a-half later, after intensive physiotherapy and
an unbeatable will, he eventually progressed to the point where
he was able to walk. Doctors told him that he would never fully
recover.
"They said, 'The best you could hope for is 65 per cent
mobility the way you're going,'" Gaucher said.
Those comments had to be challenged. The challenge started
in hospital.
"Some of the other patients would say, '"Why are
you working so hard,'" Gauche said. "Well, I've got
a mountain to climb, I'd tell them."
Gaucher put more faith in his Cree traditions and spirituality
in his struggle to recover and realize his dream. He went to
the Smallboys
Camp near Hinton, Alta. and participated in sweatlodges where
the Elders told him they saw a vision of Gaucher climbing Everest.
"I definitely believe that the grandfathers have allowed
me this mobility and opportunity for our own people," he
said.
Kerry Agecoutay, team member and a Cree from the Cowessess
Reserve in Saskatchewan, is also making a recovery - a recovery
that is both physical and spiritual.
Agecoutay is a recovering alcoholic.
He was raised in an environment where drug and alcohol abuse
and violence were so prevalent that he accepted it as normal
way of life. As he grew up he continued the cycle.
At an early age, Agecoutay and his family moved to Calgary
where he grew up. His 10-year marriage broke up in 1993. His
alcoholism was a leading factor in the divorce.
He moved to California where a small stained glass studio
he had established was destroyed in a fire. He found work as
a dealer in a casino but drugs and alcohol were a part of the
scene and he eventually lost the job.
He made it back to Calgary where a run-in with the police
led to his entering the Poundmaker treatment centre.
"I was probably going to do some time so that's when
I decided to go into a treatment centre," Agecoutay said.
"Ever since then I've been in recovery and accepted the
fact that I'm a drug addict and alcoholic.
Agecoutay hopes that through his recovery and his joining
the team he can be a role model for others in the Native community.
He wants "to show them that we can recover and have high
expectations of ourselves and set goals."
Agecoutay receives support from the team members.
"I've actually been asked if I was worried about him
going into a relapse of any kind. I'm not," Gaucher said.
"I believe the grandfathers have led us and brought us together
and for that reason we are going to succeed."
Climbing Everest takes more than dreams and confidence, it
takes hard training, organization and, most importantly, it takes
money.
The team has been incorporated and has a board of directors
to raise the money they need to fund their dream.
In the meantime, the team trains by climbing in the Rocky
Mountains on a regular basis, scaling higher and higher peaks.
This fall they plan on climbing the highest peak in the Rockies,
Mount Robson in British Columbia, then onto Mount Denali in Alaska,
and next to the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere, Mount
Aconcagua in Argentina.
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