Privilege

Lately I have been thinking about privilege. I remember hearing in secondary school that all North Americans have won the genetic lottery because we live in Canada and have access to things that are unattainable for 90% of the world. That is incorrect because according to recent research by the United Nations and the book Dances with Dependency, Canadian on-reserve conditions for most indigenous peoples are consistent with developing countries. In fact, if you compare a village in Uganda to many reserves in Canada you will see many similarities: unsafe water supply, lack of food security and inadequate housing. Economic poverty does not mean spiritual poverty though, seen through access to elders and ceremonies on-reserve. It is my hope that by learning skills in sustainability from T'Sooke Reserve for use in Uganda will also be applicable to reserves across Canada.

It is a privilege to be with this program because I enjoy being surrounded by community support and culture. We tend to smudge with an elder once a day, Chief Gordon comes to visit us and often brings his drum and a song and many members of the community have expressed their support for us. As someone who rarely prays, (and usually only when I am feeling in need of divine intervention,) I find myself, and the other interns seem to be more gentle and thankful each day we are here, and commonly initiating prayers of good luck and gratitude.

This pilot project is by the Victoria International Development Education Association (VIDEA) and is the first of its kind, by taking 10 aboriginal youth aged 18-30 and training and empowering us to help international villages, we hopefully will return and help our own communities. The organization is under pressure to document this internship and all outreach will be collected and sent to Steven Harper in the hopes of securing funding for this project next year. If you are interested in this project and would like to apply, check out the VIDEA website and look for next year’s application letter, available at http://www.videa.ca/index.php?pageid=1

VIDEA works with other smaller organizations to send them volunteers, among other things. I will be working with the Ugandan Rural Foundation, found at http://www.ugandaruralfund.org/

I've also included a video about Northwestern Uganda in 2005, it is the first part of a 10 part series you can find on youtube. It is highly emotional but a great story.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3o40iteImCI

I would like to leave you with a famous Cree quote, "Only when the last tree has died, and the last river has been poisoned, and the last fish has been caught, will we realize that we cannot eat money.”
And as always,
Love to Moosmas, David, and everyone reading