Holistic AIDS Awareness

     There has been a lot of awareness raised in our blog about elevated statistics concerning suicide, living conditions, health, and murder within First Nations populations.  All of these factors contribute to the fact that Aboriginal people experienced HIV at rates about 3.6 times higher than other Canadians in 2008. (Public Health Agency of Canada, 2008) Living conditions are unbearable, and families are either dying from lack of health services available to heal their diseases, or suffering from addictions from attempting to numb their emotional pain.  This puts Aboriginal people at a greater risk of contracting HIV (Amirault, Morris, Saulnier, Steenbeek, 2010). Colonization created severe and complex trauma  (Karmali, S., et al. 2005) that has been self medicated as a coping mechanism for centuries.  We can only expect that the next generation will adopt the same unhealthy coping skills as the ones who have raised them.      

 The Canadian Aboriginal Aids Network (CAAN) is a non-profit organization that provides leadership, support and advocacy for Aboriginal people who are living with, and effected by HIV/AIDS.("Caan mission, philosophy,," 2012)  CAAN has just announced that their funding application has just been approved and they were given a five year grant for $1.5 million.  This money will be used to develop community based programs which will now be supported and researched by using issue-based criteria instead of always looking at discipline based research.  This means that important concerns around heightened statistics that impact HIV and AIDS outbreaks in First Nations communities, will finally be incorporated into the community based research initiatives.  This is an important gain in addressing policy concern.  This type of action is a great example of how socialist ideologies are beginning to permeate our treatment paradigms, and how it creates a belief in what is possible for others to aspire to.   
   

            www.caan.ca

    It seems as though we are starting to put a face on some pretty daunting, and seemingly insurmountable public issues.   If we are able to bring the individual into the equation of a complex problem, such as the AIDS epidemic among our indigenous people, then we will also be equipped to take a holistic approach in lowering the rates of suicide, addiction, health issues, and poverty, that threaten our nation.  This is a big advancement in the wellbeing of our indigenous population, and it was such an obvious piece of the puzzle that was keeping healing from happening.   We must first look at the individual, then the community in which they live in.  We can then understand the societal, and cultural determinants of their living conditions, and then we will be able to create change our world.

~Tara

References:

Public Health Agency of Canada, (2008). Population-specific hiv/aids status report: Aboriginal peoples. Retrieved from http://www.publichealth.gc.ca 

Amirault, M., Morris, C., Saulnier, G., Steenbeek, A., (2010).  Canadian Journal of Aboriginal Community-based HIV/AIDS Research, Vol. 3,  p.18.

Karmali, S., et al., (2005). Epidemiology of severe trauma among status aboriginal Canadians: a population-based study. Canadian Medical Association 

Caan mission, philosophy, goals and vision. (2012). Retrieved from http://www.caan.ca/about/mission/