Dalla Lana School of Public Health’s Waakebiness-Bryce Institute for Indigenous Health offers five days learning about Indigenous health in one of Canada’s first land-based learning courses. The move to land-based learning is an attempt to truly Indigenize the educational experience so that public health workers can begin to gain the kind of understanding they’ve been missing, said Suzanne Stewart, director of the Waakebiness-Bryce Institute. She hopes this shift in thinking will address the root reasons for many of the failures of public health institution programs to improve Indigenous health.
“The Western paradigm has privileged the mind. In Indigenous culture, it’s the spirit and the heart that makes decisions and guides our lifestyle and behaviours,” she said. “Everything to do with Indigenous health is tied to spirituality, and spirituality is based in the land and in the relationship between land and people.”