Words are not enough

Page 6

Editorial

Two child welfare conferences were held in Calgary last week. One an international Aboriginal peoples' conference which saw people from all over the world attend, and the other a Metis conference.

During these conferences the issue of child care and love for our children, especially the Aboriginal child who is so often more at risk than his or her white peers, was discussed, dissected, analysed, and examined in detail.

Brave statements on love for our children, and sentiments such as 'without our children we are nothing' were expounded and applauded during a banquet attended by almost a thousand adults. Only one or two children, and those babes in arms, were present.

But, what so many of these 'well meaning' delegates seem to forget is that the problems of children have been written on, talked on and analysed, for more than 30 years.

In 1959 the United Nations General Assembly declared that "mankind owes the child the best it has to give," and unanimously adopted a resolution on the rights of the child.

In December 1976 this same body proclaimed 1979 the Year of the Child with the mandate to provide a framework for advocasy on behalf of children and to create awareness of childrens' special needs.

Here in Canada special committees were formed to deal with this issue. Reports were written, conferences organized, banquets held. But again, no input from the children.

Now, as the latest conferences come to a close and people make their way back to their communities, perhaps the delegates should take a long hard look at what is really being achieved.

A whole year was dedicated to the child in 1979, yet other than impressive reports bound in the finest paper with beautiful color pictures, what else was achieved?

A report released during the Calgary conference indicated that Native children are three ties as more likely to be taken into care than their white counterparts. It seems that despite the many conferences, 'The Year of the Child,' the reports, the banquets, that our children continue to suffer.

Perhaps it is about time we forgot about conferences, put banquets on the back burner, and got back to the children and the real challenge of doing something.

Unless the underlying issue of child welfare is addressed, and addressed thoroughly, we'll probably be attending another conference in 30 years time. We'll see the same guest speaker making the same speeches. We'll see the same old "conference junkies" suffering from hangovers and we'll see the same banquet complete with speeches and applause. But worse of all, we'll be faced with the same depressing statistics.

Challenge to Aboriginals repeated around world

The festival of Aboriginal films is one of the best things to happen to indigenous people of the world. It was incredible to hear a Same from Lapland describe how his people have lost their traditional reindeer herding life because of land losses and cultural suppression by the Scandinavian government. Their language was banned and Same children were taken away to residential schools, just as happened in North America.

It goes to show that Aboriginal problems, as the Maoris and Aborigines will also attest to, are largely the same around the world. And this year's film festival was a wonderful forum for these people to get together and share their cultures and ideas for preserving it. Each film was worth a thousand words in describing what has happened to these indigenous people and how they see the world today. May the Aboriginal film festival become a long-standing institution in Alberta.