COVID-19 Daily News Digest – November 17, 2020
Editorial: Turn to the arts for inspiration in the pandemic
Arts organizations are also already helping us process this unsettling pandemic experience. At the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, there was a recent exhibition focused on doing just this. Reflecting Dis-Ease: Eh Ateh Pahinjhk Ahkosiwin — Rethinking Pandemics Through An Indigenous Lens explores the way COVID-19 has revealed pressures, gaps and ills in our society. It runs until this Sunday.
https://thestarphoenix.com/opinion/editorials/turn-to-the-arts-for-inspiration-in-the-pandemic
Tree of Hope ceremony honours MMIWG
“I just don’t want people to forget,” she said. “I feel so bad for the surviving family members and friends, because they feel that they grieve alone – but they don’t grieve alone. If they’re grieving, the community’s grieving.”
Leaders representing the City of Thunder Bay, Fort William First Nation, Ontario Native Women’s Association (ONWA), Nishnawbe Aski Nation (NAN), and local police and firefighters attended the ceremony Sunday evening, which was held by invitation only due to COVID-19.
https://www.tbnewswatch.com/local-news/tree-of-hope-ceremony-honours-mmiwg-2881766
WORLD: Canada’s track record on children set to get worse with COVID-19 pandemic, profs say
The recent UNICEF report card exposes Canada for failing its young children. The report, appropriately called “World’s Apart,” examines the status of children from the world’s most developed countries and looks at child happiness, well-being and skill. Among 38 developed economies, Canada falls 30th overall.
Canada’s inequity gaps are wide, child poverty is rampant and national averages gloss over worse conditions for those from racialized communities and Indigenous children. The report reveals that although the average child poverty rate in Canada is one in five, children from Black communities have rates as high as one in three. Within some Indigenous communities it’s a staggering one in two.
Decolonizing the narrative about Indigenous people
“Decolonizing history is having us rethink how we learn and what we learn to incorporate other voices,” said Clark. “Part of the process is understanding where that system has failed individuals, and then grow from that and look for the new voices that are going to help build a better kind of worldview and understanding.”
New Indigenous film is ‘the perfect project to do for COVID’
“[It’s] a perfect project to do for COVID actually,” says Preuss. “It was directly addressed to a video camera and it’s always been that way. We didn’t change that for the film.”
Deer Woman is about Lila, a Blackfoot woman who seeks revenge for her little sister’s life as an ex-military and daughter of a deer hunter.
Touching on historical and contemporary trauma, the film honours those affected by the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG) within the story itself, but also in how it was shot and even the day it was released. The film was released on October 4, the day people in Canada remember Sisters in Spirit.
Work with Indigenous communities on honouring residential school survivors: Miller
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller says the federal government must work with Indigenous communities to figure out the best way to highlight the “painful heritage” of residential schools in Canada and honour their victims and survivors.
Manitoba reserve on lockdown after all residents at care home infected with COVID-19
All 28 seniors at the Rod McGillivary Memorial Care Home on the Opaskwayak Cree Nation have been infected and 17 of them are symptomatic, Onekanew (Chief) Christian Sinclair said Monday.
At least 17 staff members have also tested positive, and others are isolating and monitoring for symptoms, he said.
The dramatic increase in cases has forced the reserve, about 520 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg, to be put under lockdown. There were 63 active cases on Sunday but that had jumped to 124 by Monday.
Turtle Island Edmonton initiative aims to make businesses safer spaces for Indigenous youth
The Turtle Island Edmonton initiative was organized to address the negative experiences Indigenous youth have in Edmonton businesses. It was started in February in an Edmonton junior high school when students shared with their teacher and other students the discrimination they have faced. Businesses and organizations that join Turtle Island commit to making their spaces safer for Indigenous youth and sign onto a list of five commitments. They launched their Instagram this summer, which is when Turtle Island Edmonton really got started.