- Examine the roles of women and children in your family and community that has molded your ideals and perspectives.
- Highlight positive, respectful, honouring views about women and children and build on your strengths in this area.
- Deconstruct the negative, inaccurate and disrespectful views about women and children that you have developed to determine where they come from.
- Create an action plan for yourself to alter your thinking to bring yourself to a better path.
- Create an action plan for yourself to effect change in your own family, class and community.
Gender-based violence is a term used to describe abuse of any kind towards someone based on their gender. Gender-based violence happens around the world, and in Canada we see especially high rates of violence happening to Indigenous women.
At the Moose Hide Campaign, we see this violence as a sickness that is impacting our entire country. But, we feel we have an effective medicine.
Moose are strong and powerful animals that live in our forests. They are intelligent beings who know we need help - and so they gift us the moose hide pins to spread this medicine throughout Canada.
You are invited to use the moose’s strength to stand up against violence, and you are gifting your knowledge to others when they ask about the pin. Together we can end gender-based violence.
When we talk about the moose hide as medicine, we are not saying that the moose hide can cure headaches or the common cold, but rather it heals our spirits and grounds us.
Watch the video which shares the traditional Anishnaabe story of the first butterflies - pay attention to how the animals take care of humans and how all of our needs can be fulfilled by plants and animals.
Now draw an animal and complete the answers, thinking of what gifts it brings the world. This might be a teaching or something you have learned from the animal, or something it produces and gifts to humans (such as fur, meat, medicine, etc.).
Many Indigenous cultures believe that health includes more than just the physical body. For example, if you have a broken bone you may not be in perfect health - that is a physical ailment.
However, you may not be in perfect health if you are grieving the death of a loved one, or if you are angry about something a friend said to you.
Health is more than just your body feeling physically well - it also means you are mentally, emotionally, and spiritually well. These four components of health make up the medicine wheel.
