When the system fails us, we can build better.
In our first episode, we go back to 2018, exploring the overlapping contexts and systems that contribute to the victimization of African Nova Scotian and Urban Indigenous women in Kjipuktuk, Mi’kma,ki - also known as Halifax, Nova Scotia.
We hear from the four organizations that would come to form the Creating Communities of Care Project. We learn about the needs of Black and Indigenous women in Kjipuktuk, and the ways in which the systems and institutions (that are put in place to aid women in need) underserve and ultimately criminalize African Nova Scotian and Urban Indigenous women facing gender-based violence.
RESOURCES:
If you heard parts of your own story in this podcast, and are interested in learning more about the organizations mentioned in this episode, please refer to the following:
More about Creating Communities of Care
Association of Black Social Workers:
- Contact or intake number/email: ccc@nsabsw.ca OR 902-407-8809
- Link to online intake portal: https://www.nsabsw.ca/contactus/
Elizabeth Fry Society of Mainland Nova Scotia:
Mi’kmaw Legal Support Network:
- Contact or intake number/email: 902-379-2042 OR 902-895-1141
- Link to online intake portal: www.MLSN.ca
Mi’kmaw Native Friendship Centre:
What is Creating Communities of Care?
In an effort to address the barriers and gaps in care experienced by African Nova Scotian and Urban Indigenous women in Kjipuktuk (Halifax, Nova Scotia), four organizations banded together to provide culturally-specific programming to address the issue of gender-based violence as it appears in these two communities.
Inspired by Indigenous customary law and Afrocentricity, these programs aim to address the failures of our inherited colonial systems by connecting women with other members of their community in spaces where their culture is integrated into the care they receive. Although this project has seen huge successes so far, but there is still much to learn, and much more work to do.