In week 10 out reading about Inuit elders really got me thinking about their role in native communities.  Many cultures embrace their elders as a source of wisdom but I am aware of few groups that elevate them to a status equivalent to first nations groups.

The website http://www.niichro.com/Elders/Elders7.html shares some great information about Native American Elders, Leaders, Seniors and the demographics behind Native communities.  The website is focused on a cross-cultural look at diversity and aging and I must say there is some great information and insight here.

The site is a joint project between the National Indian and Inuit Community Health Representatives Organization (NIICHRO) and the Canadian Ethnocultural Council (CEC) and is focused on addressing issues for elders in first nations communities.

Here are some of the concepts that the site focuses on and their links:

• Different Histories, Some Common Issues
• Seniors and Elders
• Some Demographic Trends
• Elders at Risk
• The Normal Process of Ageing
• Essential Elements of Ageing Well
• Barriers to Ageing Well: The Problem of Unwanted Isolation
• A Wholistic Approach to Unwanted Isolation

Check out the site for more information and some insight into issues facing Aboriginal elders.

The purpose of the website is to contribute to the objective of closing the health gap between Indigenous and other Australians.

The website has a range of topics: Health facts, Chronic conditions, Infectious conditions, Population groups and Health systems to mention a few.  It  informs practice and policy in Indingenous health by making research and health information readily available it has a bibliographic data base to search for a full range of health publications on Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health.

This website is comprehensive.  It has over 3800 pages of information.

Interesting point, it uses the Gecko as its logo because it can be found throughout Australia so it was deemed an appropriate symbol/logo for this site.

This website is a government controlled site and it is worth checking out. In contrast to the United Nations website, there are some problems with the layout of the pages of the official home page in Spanish. There is so much information that it is very hard to navigate, even my children told me that it was just too confusing to be useful. The search option only checks out government pages and again I found it difficult to use. It is obvious that someone has tried to find lots of important health related, cultural and educational links, but for example some of the links are broken and others disappeared. I next tried the simplified homepage and I must admit it was a lot easier. There was less information, but I think that most people would find it more manageable. The Indigenous homepage also appeared to have les information than the official page, obviously I couldn’t check the content. The English and French homepages seem geared more to tourists, although if you click on the health news the information is in Spanish..

Official homepage: http://www.e-indigenas.gob.mx/wb2/eMex/Home

Simplified homepage: http://www.e-indigenas.gob.mx/wb2/eMex/eMex_Usuario_no_experto

 Indigenous homepage: http://www.e-indigenas.gob.mx/wb2/eMex/Home

 English homepage: http://www.e-mexico.gob.mx/wb2/eMex/Home

The Centre for Aboriginal Health Research (CAHR) coordinates research activities to help First Nations and Aboriginal communities to encourage and promote healthy lifestyles and improved health services.  A joint initiative of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba and the Foundations of Health, the CAHR works towards integrating scientific and traditional Aboriginal knowledge and approaches to work towards producing new knowledge about health and health care.

The symbol of the turtle logo represents a creation story which is appropriate for the Center’s goal to create new knowledge that encompasses Aboriginal cultural and social realities.  The arrows represent the taking in and giving back of information, the medicine wheel, and the four directions represent the four races on earth, stages of life and the physical, spiritual, emotional and psychological realms of health.

Objectives of the CAHR are:

To support and conduct studies related to traditional healing, prevalent diseases, culture-based approaches to healing, factors that influence health service systems, and addresses gender and age related needs within the First Nations and Aboriginal communities.

To provide community education and training in health research, to facilitate the use of health information and policy development, to advice First Nations and Aboriginal governments on health policy issues.

Links include:

Present Research

Past Research

Publications and Reports

http://www.manitobachiefs.com/

Wilde, D. (designer) AHR Logo, (online image)  Retrieved November 17, 2009  from CAHR website. http://www.umanitoba.ca/centres/cahr/about/background.html

http://www.lib.virginia.edu/etd/masters/ArtsSci/English/2002/Daniels/curtis/throssel/professional.html

Whereas Edward Curtis was a White man photographing Indians, Richard Throssel was a Crow Indian, hired by the Indian Service (of the US Gov’t) from 1909 to 1911 to depict everyday life on the Crow Reserve. While Throssel’s photographs are also coloured by the late-Romantic notion of the “noble Indian”, his insider’s perspective led to many photographs that depict a somewhat truer reality: Indians who weren’t living in an idealized past, but as contemporary to the rest of America at the beginning of the twentieth century.

On the page linked above, Valerie Daniels has posted a representative selection of photographs from Throssel’s employment by the Indian Service and his later private venture, Throssel Photocraft Co., along with a brief biography. A number of these photos, such as Showing the Better Class of Indian Home (1910) and Interior of the Best Kitchen on the Crow Reservation (1910) had been produced for use in educational pamphlets on “Indian Health”.

First Nations Technology Council

Description & Relevance

This site outlines the Mission, Mandate, Goals and the organizational  structure  of the  British Columbia First Nations Technology Council. The relevance of this organization and supporting partnerships to our focus in Module 1 of ETEC 521 is significant, pasrticularly when considering the mission “supporting the full integration of technologies to improve the quality of life for l First Nations in BC,” progressive goals, and support for technology integration which highlight the values of the First Nations Technology Council. In the first module we are asking ‘big questions’ about the paradoxes between indigeneity and technology. When exploring the ambitious and benevolent efforts of this council it seems as if the potential negatives and consequences of technology integration into first nations communities are not at issue. Regardless, the site itself is excellent and contains many links to partners and associated sites that explore the use of and connections between First Nations, technlogy, and education.

Links and Features

There are too many links to list but here are some that have strong connections to our course of study

•  From the Community Applications page is a link to a documentary titled “Cedar and Silicon” which explores the process of bringing technology to a First Nations community.
• The Youth Cafe page links to a number of related sites as well as a Film Festival in part supported by the First Nations Technology Council.[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsYbvXZerTY&feature=channel_page[/youtube]

Address: http://www.fntc.info/

[Well, here goes. I’ll break open the floodgates on this blogging project. Please let me know if I’m not on the right track with this posting.]

https://hscssl.unm.edu/nhd/index.cfm?act=app.home

“The Native Health Database contains bibliographic information and abstracts of health-related articles, reports, surveys, and other resource documents pertaining to the health and health care of American Indians, Alaska Natives, and Canadian First Nations. The database provides information for the benefit, use, and education of organizations and individuals with an interest in health-related issues, programs, and initiatives regarding North American indigenous peoples.” (from “About the NHD“)

While this database doesn’t focus specifically on technology, it does leverage a digital database and the internet in order to facilitate health-care research through a Native North American lens. A couple of quick searches identified numerous articles that do touch on technology in the delivery of and education about health care in an Indigenous context. Such articles could be used to inform my own research into considering the selection of technology-based delivery methods for theological education in First Nations communities in northern Ontario and Quebec.

Other links from this site include:

• Outreach Connections:
  Native Health Information
• The University of Manitoba, Aboriginal Health Collection
• Indian Health Service Headquarters Publications
• Health Status Profile of American Indians in Arizona: 2007 Data
• New Mexico American Indian Health Status Report 2005
• American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) Data and Links, U.S. Census Bureau
• Pimatisiwin

David Macdonald