Native issues a dud at student conference

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Organizers for a conference on impaired driving were disappointed at the lack of Native representation.

The conference organized for Alberta students by People Against Impaired Driving and Research and Education on Impaired Driving was held April 21 to 24, in Edmonton. Drawing on previous attendance, the conference, called Accept the Challenge IV, included several session focussing on Native issues.

But speaker Allan White, a worker at the Nechi Institute on Alcohol and Drug Education, and conference organizers were surprised when realizing the two session groups of 40 students each included only one or two Natives.

"Last year, we had a larger conference overall, and we had quite a good number of Native delegates. But this year, for whatever reason, there were few Natives," says a disappointed Fern Palylyk, conference organizer.

Many of the participants wondered what their (non-Native) situations had to do with Native issues. Palylyk thinks the students may have missed the point.

"It's not so much that the students can contribute to the Native situation, but that the Native experience and tradition may offer some solutions to some of the participants exposed to it."

"And if half of the kids missed the point on the Native issues sessions, they miss the point in a lot of other sessions, too. quite a few of those at the conference were not what I'd call right for delegates. Some were there just for a good time or to get away or for some other reason of their own, hardly connected with the issue."

White began his sessions talking about himself and his years as an active alcoholic, drug user and drunk driver.

"It was just the way it was supposed to be. I didn't know there was any other way to live. I drank, smoked dope, drove. We all did. Some of us are now dead, and so is a lot of my family," he told the students.

The session moved on to an explanation of Nechi, which is a Cree word meaning "either 'one of the people' or 'my spirit touches yours'," said White.

"We work on self-government through mutual aid, and one of our strongest equations, which I shared with the students, is change and healing equals awareness plus action.

"If we can have a person with a problem really take that to heart, we have him or her on the right road. But it's not something anybody can do for anybody else. Strength comes from within. The will to change, the will to save yourself, those things must come from within, too."