The Elders who took part in the Seniors’ Medicine Wheel program shared many concerns about their own health, as well as the health of the younger generations. They saw many things they would like to change in their community, from substance abuse and family violence, to a loss of cultural identity and a sense of hopelessness amongst the community’s youngest members.

During the initial phase of the project, a series of weekly gatherings facilitated by staff from the Friendship Centre brought Elders together to learn more about the various services that were available, and how to access them in order to improve their health.

In these meetings, the Elders were also able to share their concerns about what they were seeing in their community. They felt a sense of responsibility to take action to improve the situation for the children and youth who were growing up in what they knew was a physically, mentally and spiritually unhealthy environment.

Through their weekly discussions the Elders realized that they all shared a deep concern for the children and youth in their community, and feared that many of them were entering into a cycle of abuse that had begun generations earlier, with the residential schools. The Elders felt compelled to do something to improve the mental health and self-esteem of those children. They felt that by sharing their traditional cultural knowledge with the young people, they could help them to be proud of who they were. In teaching and sharing with the children, the Elders would also gain something -- the knowledge that they were making an important contribution to the mental health of their community.

The second mental health promoting phase of the Seniors’ Medicine Wheel project was born. Through contacts at the Friendship Centre, they began to work with Aboriginal Head Start, a program already operating in the community, whose mandate was to foster spiritual, emotional, intellectual and physical growth in Aboriginal children, and to support parents and guardians as the prime teachers and caregivers of their children.

Given that another aspect of Head Start’s mandate was to work with and support other community programs, forming a partnership between Head Start and the Medicine Wheel project seemed logical. This partnership united two initiatives which placed equal value on caring, creativity and pride flowing from the knowledge of traditional beliefs, language and culture.

The Elders were the only members of the community who still knew some of the traditional languages and teachings, and could pass them on to the younger generations. Because many of the Elders were survivors of residential schools, however, some of their knowledge of language and tradition had already been lost.

Working together benefited both the seniors and the children enormously. The Elders were giving something of great value to the children --their time, their cultural knowledge and their wisdom. They were recognized, many for the first time, for the contributions they were able to make to the community. Through their nurturing relationship with the Elders, the children not only learn Aboriginal language and traditional beliefs, but they also develop confidence, respect, and a sense of their own value.

The Elders and children formed lasting relationships through the Medicine Wheel program. Some of the Elders actually adopted the children as grandchildren, and continue to spend time teaching and sharing together.

The participants in the project worked together to create two workbooks: a colouring book for children that tells many of the traditional legends and stories, and a book recognizing the wisdom and contributions of the Elders. These books have been made available to other Aboriginal communities, to inspire them to take similar action to promote mental health.

It was evident to the staff at the Friendship Centre that the program was a huge success, because, at a certain point, it ceased to be a program and instead became a part of people’s lives. Although the funding for the program came to an end, the work that the project began has not. The Medicine Wheel program helped inspire a community to begin a healing process -- a movement that promotes both mental health and cultural regeneration.