Final Reflection

At the beginning of the semester I was unsure of how to write a proper academic argument in a blog. My first blog I can clearly admit that I struggled with it but over time with the second, third and fourth blog I could see my progress in writing and researching with Anishnabe people’s social policy issues. I learned a lot by writing my blogs in the Anishnabe People in Canada: Social policy issues group. My blog topics addressed Domestic Family Violence, Grassy Narrows Mercury Poisoning, Aboriginal Mental Health and Poverty and Aboriginal Peoples. Out of these four blogs the one social policy issue that stood out for me is researching the Grassy Narrows mercury poisoning and how the government was aware of this environmental issue and had created a Mercury Poisoning Compensation for the people. Even though these people are being compensated no amount of money can reverse the effects of minamata disease. The fact that this has been going on for forty years and there is no real concrete way to address this problem worries me for the future generations that are born in that geographical area. My group covered high unemployment, suicide, sub-standardized housing, poor health care, aids/hiv, addictions, residential school impacts, aboriginal children in care. Collectively I learned a lot from my group and other groups in the class through their blog posts and the class presentations were very informative and interesting. The study group was helpful in regard to Silvia helping explain to students who were having difficulty explain the neo-liberalism, neo-conservation, socialism approaches to social welfare in their blogs.

Our group had some difficulties but we were able to overcome them with participating in a healing circle. Any issues that our group members had experienced in a negative manner were addressed in a positive gentle manner. When we presented to the class and we were able to share as group what we learned collectively and being about to drum and sing a traditional women’s song was truly an enjoyable moment to a share cultural teaching with the class. I look forward to learning more about social welfare in the north in the second semester.

Meegweech Allison