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Nursing students pledge commitment

Vow to engage Indigenous individual, families and communities in culturally relevant health promotion

March 13, 2015 — 

Last fall the College of Nursing organized the display of the exhibition titled: We Were So Far Away: The Inuit Experience of Residential Schools at the Fort Garry Campus; with support from the Manitoba Inuit Association, Indigenous Achievement, Office of the President, and the National Research Centre for Truth and Reconciliation, University of Manitoba. The exhibition, produced by the Legacy of Hope Foundation, Aboriginal Healing Foundation, and Library and Archives Canada with financial support from the Government of Canada, presents the Inuit experience of residential schools through the voices of eight courageous Survivors.

According to Elaine Mordoch, associate professor (College of Nursing) the intention of having the exhibition at the Fort Garry Campus was to provide the project was to provide nursing students with an opportunity to expand their thinking on the historical events that currently impact the physical and mental health of Canada’s Aboriginal peoples, the Inuit, Metis and the First Nations peoples for whom our students will be challenged to provide culturally competent nursing care based on an understanding of the historical and current issues that face many Aboriginal people.

“We were trying to assist the students to understand the historical experience of Indigenous people and how it relates to current health outcome,” said Mordoch. DSC_0612We Were So Far Away: The Inuit Experience of Residential Schools  exhibit

As part of the nursing students’ participation in the week long activities associated with the exhibition, Daniel Sushko, senior stick for the Nursing Students’ Association (NSA), signed a pledge on behalf of all nursing students to “commit to being positive role models that engage Indigenous individual, families and communities in culturally relevant health promotion” and to “choose to ally ourselves with Indigenous children, youth, and their families to create an environment that supports, affirms, and celebrates all students’ cultural and ethnic identities.”

In addition, Sushko also convinced the Canadian Nursing Students’ Association (CNSA) to make a similar pledge in January this year at the CNSA’s national conference on behalf of all nursing students to commit to “support health promotion and culturally safe delivery of health care in partnership with Indigenous peoples” and to “affirming their cultural identities and to celebrating their contribution to society.”

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