I would say the most important thing is to educate. Educate youth to be successful no matter what their upbringing is like. A lot of children I deal with even in the program I work for right now.... I'm the community coordinator for the ILAUNCH program: indigenous project LAUNCH, which stands for “linking actions for unmet needs in children's health”. That's the program I work for. A lot of the time I see happening exactly everything that I've been through in my life, with my siblings, so I always give the tools and the resources to all the families I work with on where they can go to get help. Most of the time I'm an advocate for them, and I need to hold their hands.
A lot of the time, like Marlene said, they don't get that nurturing, they don't get that love and support to do those things, so just having somebody to advocate for them, to speak for them, to have that safety and that accountability that somebody is going to be there to follow up and follow through with all of their expectations, which they've never had before, is rewarding for them.
A lot of the time that's how gangs pick up children in those situations, because most of the time, they're in foster homes and they're not getting the love, nurturing, respect or cultural identity that they expect to get. For indigenous children, that's instilled in them. They're just born with that. It's not something that they get or that's an advantage for them.
My family is a powwow family, so we travel all over Canada and the U.S. and everywhere to do powwows, to sing. My husband is a well-known singer who produces albums of powwow music and round dance music. That cultural identity is tough for them, and it's taken them a lot of places.
