We acknowledge the deep work we have done in collaboration with Indigenous communities across Canada. Through our learning together, we are all coming to understand the pathways we walk to our wellness goals. The Canadian Red Cross is piloting a community-change model in Indigenous communities to create safe environments and prevent violence. Community and individual’s stories inform this model and, in turn, the model had guided our creation of this Starting Place Story (SPS) tool.
At the beginning, using the SPS tool to help communities share their story, the tool helps them clarify the cycle of violence associated with the disruptions caused by colonization. Through the ongoing work of writing then sharing the community’s story, the SPS tool helps communities identify their aspirations for holistic wellness. The community’s SPS brings them to the beginning of the community-change process.
The community-change model outlines a process that Indigenous communities can use to help understand historical harms are the foundation for current experiences of violence within the community. The community-change process helps communities address the resulting challenges of this violence. By working together, the community comes to understand, name, and re-claim its past and begin the journey from the cycle of violence to the circle of wellness through their self-determined pathways to healing.
The Canadian Red Cross supports Indigenous communities in creating healing processes in their own community that address the cycle of violence rooted in colonization and promote the circle of wellness rooted in Indigenous traditions.
The four inter-related elements of the community-change model are the:
The canoe is the central element in the model. In Figures 1, 2 and 3 below, the canoes represent everyone working together to create safety for children and youth: the community, the community’s violence prevention team, the Community Based Coordinator, and the Canadian Red Cross.
While movement of the canoe from the cycle of violence on the pathways to healing to the circle of wellness happens by everyone working together, the actions in the pathways to healing and the specifics of the community’s landing place in the circle of wellness are determined and led by the community and its members.
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