Essay Example on Indigenous Communities: Addressing Social Issues through Culturally Driven Approaches

Introduction

Indigenous communities such as the Aboriginals have faced social issues such as suicide, risk of HIV and domestic violence. There are effective strategies that may be used to address these social issues, such as development methods and culture. Approaches that are culturally driven are ideal for helping address the crisis of suicide within indigenous communities (Barker et al., 2017). Suicide by youth is known to be a form of community crisis whose requirement for social change will need cultural reclamation.

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Culturally-Based Approach

The emphasis of using a culturally-based approach is to focus on the significance of interconnectedness in aspects of healing as well as the revitalization of traditional values that include family, meaningful roles and balance, among others. The identities of indigenous people and their cultures are connected to health (Barker et al., 2017). Communities that have several positive cultural markers that include language, self-governance, education and healthcare tend to experience low rates of suicide compared to those that do not have.

Similarly, the suicide rate is almost zero for communities that have half of the members speaking at a conversational level of the indigenous language (Barker et al., 2017). Another strategy to address social issues is community empowerment. As a cardinal principle to promote health, empowerment involves shifting from a top-down approach and adopting the implementation of health programs to the processes within the community that are aimed at engaging community members in decisions that affect them.

Community Empowerment

Through community empowerment, the State recognizes that the quality of programming decisions can be improved through adopting decentralized processes that ensure active engagement of Aboriginal people in the planning and delivery of programs. Within Indigenous communities like the Aboriginals, empowerment needs shifting the power relationships that are existent between the youth and also adults from the paternalistic approaches to those that allow meaningful collaboration.

The current substance issues in the Indigenous communities include a high level of substance use and alcohol among members. The pressing concern is that of conscious knowledge that members of the indigenous communities were aware of the issue with substance use (Andersson & Ledogar, 2008). However, research shows that even though they had knowledge about substance use as well as the effects on health, they did not behave differently from those that knew less about the issue. Other problem behaviours among the indigenous communities alongside substance use include smoking, drinking, violence and vandalism. The peers also play a significant role in substance use since research showed that peers contributed to making more youths be involved in sniffing substances, smoking marijuana and drinking excessively.

Cultural Revitalization

A potential strategy to address the issue of substance use is to consider cultural revitalization. The youths caught up in the use of substances are required to attend cultural immersion camps for a month. The objective of such an activity is to reduce the problematic use of substances, promote cultural identity as well as connectedness. Programs that seek to ensure reconciliation and renewal of the culture are necessary to make members feel included, especially in communities that have experienced forceful policies and regulations towards their culture. Community-based healing initiatives for the individuals affected by substance use will do quite well in preventing them from relapsing to the same behaviours caused by substances (Kirmayer et al., 2003). Fund projects will also play a big role in arranging gatherings, community services, cultural activities, research, training and educational programs.

References

Andersson, N., & Ledogar, R. J. (2008). The CIET Aboriginal youth resilience studies: 14 years of capacity building and methods development in Canada. Pimatisiwin, 6(2), 65.

Barker, B., Goodman, A., & DeBeck, K. (2017). Reclaiming Indigenous identities: Culture as strength against suicide among Indigenous youth in Canada. Canadian journal of public health, 108(2), e208-e210.

Kirmayer, L., Simpson, C., & Cargo, M. (2003). Healing traditions: Culture, community and mental health promotion with Canadian Aboriginal peoples. Australasian Psychiatry, 11(1_suppl), S15-S23.