"Taking Care of Each Other": Indigenous Harm Reduction Video Series

YouTube Playlist:


Accompanying PDF Teaching Guide for this video series: 

https://www.fnha.ca/Documents/FNHA-VCH-Taking-Care-of-Each-Other-Harm-Reduction-Video-Guide.pdf

A collaboration between First Nations Health Authority and Vancouver Coastal Health, this campaign is a four-part video series covering the following topics:

1. Harm Reduction
2. Indigenizing Harm Reduction
3. Resisting (Reducing) Stigma
4. Hopes for the Future

Accompanying the video series is a teaching guide (see attached PDF) with discussion questions. Many of the participants in the videos identify as people with lived experience, either in recovery or active use, but they are represented as experts. While no one explicitly mentions the intersection between substance use stigma and racism - likely because the intended audience is Indigenous communities - several folks link addiction to intergenerational trauma from land theft, forced removal of children, and colonization.

2018-06-27

"'Taking Care of Each Other': Indigenous Harm Reduction Video Series" by FNHA and VCH is licensed under CC-BY-NC.

Asia Youngman, "an award-winning Indigenous director and screenwriter"

This is an abridged transcript from the Reducing Stigma video.

Tracey Morrison, President of Western Aboriginal Harm Reduction Services

I would say I have these whammies against me, right? Like being a drug user and alcoholic, um… I live in the Downtown Eastside, I’m Aboriginal, I’m a woman, I’m a welfare bum, you know? And I don’t think of those as negatives. I think of them as- they’re what strengthen me.

When I meet people, people don’t know- a lot of people don’t know that about me. And I’m like, “Well did you know these things about me?” And they’re like, “No…” And I’m like, “Wow.” I said, “See? That’s dropping stigma.”

So many people are like, “Why do you tell people everything about your life?” I said, “Because I want people to know that we’re not bad people. We’re good people.” You know? We have families. I’m somebody’s sister. I’m somebody’s auntie. You know? It’s those kind of questions, those things, you know, everybody is here for a reason. The Creator put us here.