Imagine being kicked out of your own land, being severely threatened, and discriminated for practicing your land’s own culture, almost to the extent of being extinguished? This is the life of an Indigenous person in Canada. Indigenous people refer to the First Nations, Metis, and Inuit population of Canada: the original inhabitants of Canada. But colonization and threat from the colonial forces have left most of the population in poverty and having to lead lives in extreme adversity.
A look into history will educate you about the practices and policies, such as the Indian Act and residential schools, enforced by the colonizers that altered the lives of the indigenous population in Canada. The education system failure has led to the Indigenous population facing racism, segregation, and marginalization within the Canadian community.
To bridge this gap, inspirational speaker and reconciliation consultant, Sandi Boucher helps the Indigenous population work through their past and the non-Indigenous folks to engage more in conversations to aid in the betterment of the Indigenous people’s lives.
Sandi Boucher believes that a conversation about educating people about Indigenous lives is more important now than ever because of the recent headlines. As the first line, she believes that educating folks about the history and Indigenous ways of life is essential and offers the people a perspective to think about. Regarding the recent findings and headlines about the children’s graves in residential schools, Sandi says, “We indigenous people always knew about the children being tortured and murdered, but it is all just coming to light now. Canadians are only now starting to understand the extent of the damage. Because I am indigenous, I can offer people a perspective and make people understand. People never really knew what residential schools were, and the reason for that is a huge educational problem, which is what I’m trying to provide here: missing information, with my books and seminars.”
Sandi has been providing reconciliation training for more than 12 years in an effort to create a more respectable space for the Indigenous people in the society and help the Indigenous population and Canadians, work in healthy and supportive ways. Sandi Boucher’s training gives the people the confidence and courage to as the questions they didn’t know they needed to ask or were too scared to think. Most of all, she believes that this provides hope for people.
“It is such comfort to know that important conversations are being had, even though it is uncomfortable. It is long overdue. Things will change for the better, even if it takes more time. The most important thing is to educate people, and make people understand that it is not a natural progression, but a natural reaction to what’s happened to us.”
