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Elders Support Program

The Downtown Eastside is filled with diverse Aboriginal people who are often disconnected from their traditional territory. Many come from disadvantaged backgrounds.They can lose their way in an urban environment.

The Native Courtworker and Counselling Association of BC (NCCABC) provides numerous services including drug and alcohol counselling and native youth and family support to Aboriginal people in the Downtown Eastside who are in conflict with the law.

It also offers the Elders Support Program. This program provides cultural support and advice to clients by helping them to build a positive cultural identity. The program enhances services available at NCCABC. It reconnects clients with local Aboriginal ceremonies, cultural events and activities. Clients create cultural and ceremonial regalia and participate in traditional drumming and singing as well as storytelling. With guidance from Elder Margaret Harris, participants build positive cultural identity and self-esteem.

Margaret,or Auntie, as her friends and program participants call her, is Metis.

Says Margaret, “This is what I tell them all: ‘You come in like a dandelion and you go out like a rose. They come in hurt and broken and they go out with their head high and their chest out. This is what the program has done for them.”

The Elders Support program began in January 2006. “It has been successful. Since I started here, we’ve taken in some men as well, who have grandchildren and want their children to be taught too, because they lived in the city all their lives,” she says.

Participants represent many different backgrounds from across Canada. Margaret says, “This is uniting us as one and that’s very hard for our people, to have unity. We have a chance to share and we tease each other but nobody takes it seriously. It brings us together as friends and we all have someone to call on.”

In turn, they give back to others. They regularly host dinners for the homeless, for example. “It happens once a month at Longhouse Church and it comes out of our pockets. It teaches themto give to the community,”says Margaret.

Elder Brenda Wesley, a Gitxsan from Skeena River, is helping Auntie. Says Brenda, “I’ve had 20 years of sobriety. That was with the help, first of all, from the Creator, and the native courtworkers and Elders Support Program. It’s their mandate to help Aboriginal people to live a sober life. ”Brenda has been involved in lobbying for and providing Aboriginal support programs for many years. The traditional teachings of her grandmother guide her. Margaret was taught by Brenda’s grandmother as well. Brenda shares the traditions of singing, dancing and drumming.

“The best part of it is that the songs are from the house of my grandmother – they’re the songs that she taught me as a child. We share the oral tradition. Every song and story has a moral or value to help any age level,” says Brenda.

Debbie Krull is a program participant. Her ancestry is Cree. “This program has had such an amazing impact on my life and on my daughter’s life and my immediate family. I’m more confident and I’m less angry. The self-esteem is there. I’m at peace,”she says.

Auntie Harris has provided Debbie with the opportunity to learn about her cultural identity - mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually.

“When I identify myself to the community, I introduce myself as Debbie Krull, Cree-Metis, third generation of the stolen generation. What that means is that my great-grandmother, my grandmother and my birth mother, all had their children removed from them. Those are many generations of teachings that have been lost. That’s not just cultural teaching, but parental teaching. I was apprehended from my mother when I was six and I was adopted when I was nine. I was told that I was European, because I’m pale. My brother, who is not pale, said that he was the Indian.

“Not having those teachings, the anger begins to grow. Oppression within yourself, builds and builds until I finally said,‘No.’ At the same time you have your ancestors with you, but you don’t.”

The Native Courtworker & Counselling Association of BC program is made possible thanks to funding by United Way of the Lower Mainland.