Youth turned corner in high school

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Anyone possessing the kindness of spirituality can pass it on to other people, says a Native educator.

To live a wholesome, happy life people have to balance their spiritual, physical, emotional and mental needs, notes Travis Dugas, who travels Alberta, British Columbia and the Northwest Territories conducting workshops with Native youth in their communities.

"We talk about everything from self-esteem to cultural awareness." Dugas, along with his employer, Edmonton-based Bear Woman and Associates, acknowledges the strong influence peer pressure can put on young people who often feel if they don't use drugs, drink and smoke, they won't fit in with their peer group. But he says it's their choice and it all depends on their attitude.

"If they feel good about themselves though, they won't need to belong to such a group to feel acceptance," he says.

One segment of the workshops Dugas conducts teaches young people to understand prejudice. "If they are proud of who they are, they can learn to handle racist remarks and attitudes."

Dugas started drifting aimlessly during his junior high school years. "I was hanging out with some pretty rough characters and trying to find happiness in unhealthy activities, drinking and partying," he remembers.

After a few years of not really liking himself and finding his life empty and meaningless, he took a good look at himself. "I was from a family with lots of troubles and I saw myself going the same way. I wanted to have a better life for myself."

By the time he entered St. Joseph's Composite High School in Edmonton he was ready to apply himself to his studies and to become fit physically. "I concentrated on sports and weightlifting and it paid off," he says. Not only did he graduate successfully from Grade 12, he won the outstanding male athlete award for 1988-89 at St. Joseph's and the next year he won the Rita Houle Memorial award for Native male athlete in Alberta, presented by the Canadian Native Friendship Centre in Edmonton.

Dugas, 21, realized his education was still far from complete, however. High school had only given him academic learning. "We need the teachings and wisdom of our elders too," he says.

He started working with Bear Woman in January. "I'm comfortable with my position as facilitator and I hope I can help a lot of young people by my example and by what I have been through," he says. The sessions he leads are called You're Simply the Best. It's hard, he says, to convince young people they're not responsible for the cycle of abuse many of them see in their families.

But a child who is feeling good about himself can accomplish anything and this is his goal when working with young people. "That's were the spirituality is so important. We wok to understand ourselves and where each of us belongs within the world," he says. Each person has a spiritual path to follow and it's up to them to choose if he wants to follow it.

Dugas also passes on knowledge gained when he traveled to West Berlin, Germany to attend an international conference on alcohol and drug addictions in 1990.

Dugas considers where Indian people have come from historically. "When you consider what we have been through over the last couple of hundred years, you realize we have it in us to overcome tragedies," he says.