Thank you for the question.
It's very difficult to put a priority on something like that when you're thinking from an aboriginal perspective.
Food banks--can I give you ideas on each of those very quickly? I see what's working at the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre. We don't rely just on food banks. We're now re-teaching our elders how to can salmon and all the various foods--vegetables and fruit--because that's the way we used to be. But where do we get the money to access salmon, vegetables, and fruit? Through donations. But if we had adequate resources that could go a lot further than just our elders.
Education... At the Vancouver Aboriginal Friendship Centre we are appalled by the lack of understanding of the history of aboriginal people, the real history in a non-threatening way, right from the very well-educated to those walking on the street. We teach shared cultural experience at the friendship centre. We share with them what this means, the colonization, how to understand today's issues in relation to that and how to go forward in partnership. So education could be done slightly differently.
Housing... At our shelter we provide dignity to people; they are guests, not people off the street. We provide life skills because that's what they're hungry for. They wonder how they're going to survive in the event they get into a home. We've had over 100 people put into a home without life skills, how to maintain a home. Then of course we're gradually getting them into education and jobs.