That is a really good point to bring up. That's one of the things, when I'm working in my programs, I'm looking at for dollars for programs so that I can develop some of the programs.
Some of the things I can see that would really help families, the kinds of programs.... When I was at the grand council I developed a program called “Honouring our Traditions: Shaping Healthy Behaviours”. It was an anger management program that was to be developed in Prince Albert. It went through the UAS committee and then was to be delivered out into our communities. Hopefully that initiative will continue, because that is where I believe that capacity needs to be. We need to give the education to the people so that they can deliver it to their own people. We need to provide them with services and education and programs so that they can continue to deliver those programs.
Part of what that anger management program would do in our first nations communities is it wouldn't just deal with anger management. It would deal with.... You are holding onto all this anger, but where is it coming from? Is it coming from...? And we'll go back into colonization. We'll talk about tools for how to deal with anger management. We'll talk about family violence. We'll talk about traditional lifestyles. There is so much that was put into the program. It was nine full days long, and I'm hoping that continues.
If I saw an opportunity where we could deliver programs to people and address those issues, that's where it would come from. It would come from programs coming from our grassroots people and it would be deliverable to our community so that it would be like the trainer type program so that people can take that program and run with it. If they are from a Dene community they can put a Dene cultural component to it, and it still sticks with the program so that they can kind of tailor it to their needs as long as they have the basic tools.
That is where I would really like to see a lot of funding and initiative go toward, to develop something really powerful like that. Part of being in a family violence situation is women have no self-esteem. If we can empower these women and give them some tools so that they can understand where they have come from, what has happened to them, and where they want to go, give them some tools on some child programs so that they can do some parenting, so that they know themselves and can feel empowered that way, that's the way to go. That's what I would like to see.