During my time in Indigenous Perspectives on Health and Healing I have learned so much about the culture of Indigenous people. It has been an experience that I am so happy that I have had the chance to be apart of, every week was something new and the guest speakers were amazing. They took the time to share many stories; you couldn’t help but just listen.
We had the chance to bring together a few Indigenous speakers and form a panel in which they discussed the many issues facing Indigenous people at Cape Breton University. We collaborated with the Nations to Nations Speaker Series, the panelist talked about the importance of Indigenizing CBU, why it should happen, and the barriers.
As a class we researched universities around Canada that have been “Indigenizing and Decolonizing” their universities. A point that really stood out to me from Vancouver Island University is that elders of the Indigenous community can be provided with the chance to become specialty faculty.
Vancouver Island University prides themselves in the fact that the elders provide many services at the university in such things as student support, classroom instruction, teaching traditional protocols and cross cultural sharing. This stood out to me because having many elders and other Indigenous persons come to our classroom to teach us really helped me to understand the issues. They teach in such a way that grabs your attention and brings you into the conversation.
For me as part of the nursing program at CBU I believe that a class like Indigenous Perspectives on Health and Healing should be a part of the required courses. It provided me with the chance to learn about the culture of Indigenous people and I believe that the care I provide my clients has and will continue to benefit from this. This course has provided me with a new mindset and one that is focused towards change and equality for all.
Two-Eyed Seeing for Health 