Treatment staff find pearls of wisdom in Hawaii

The recent “Healing our Spirit Worldwide” conference drew Roda Grey, Mae Saunders and Eva Lapage, shown here in Kuujjuaq’s Isuarsivik Treatment Centre, to Honolulu, Hawaii. (PHOTO BY JANE GEORGE)

KUUJJUAQ— Prying open an oyster to discover a pearl remains a highlight of the recent trip that staff and directors from Kuujjuaq’s Isuarsivik Treatment Centre took to the “Healing our Spirit Worldwide” conference in Hawaii.

But what they found inside themselves and discovered from other indigenous peoples was their most valuable souvenir from the conference, which took place Sept. 3 to 10 in Honolulu.

Roda Grey, Isuarsivik’s clinical director, came away with a new awareness that other indigenous people around the world are also using traditional values to deal with trauma and cultural oppression.

“I think it was very comforting,” said Grey, who gave a talk on Sept. 8 called “Inuit reclaiming their identity through healing from trauma and addiction.”

Grey spoke about Isuarsivik’s 42-day treatment program, which uses Inuit culture, values and spirituality to help clients maintain sobriety.

“They no longer believe they have a voice or a choice in themselves,” she told those at the session.

The Isuarsivik program helps clients recognize that they can have a choice in their family and a voice in their communities, she said.

And it helps them to express their needs and stop being victims.

But, after treatment, clients continue to struggle against alcohol and drug addictions.

“Clients make changes in their lives while being in treatment, but the outside world does not change, especially their own environment,” said Grey, citing the lack of aftercare support in Nunavik, which is often complicated by social services staff turnover and communication problems.

Despite those challenges, Grey said the conference convinced her that Isuarsivik is on the right track.

In speaking and listening to others, Grey saw that Inuit in Nunavik are not alone in dealing with the legacy of colonialism.

“We are in the same boat. Colonialism has had a big impact on all of us, although we don’t think about it every day,” Grey said.

At the conference, the group from Isuarsivik also shared in Hawaiian traditions.

Grey learned to hula. This traditional dance, which uses movements to tell a story, has a deep connection to the Hawaiian people and their land, she said, demonstrating a few arm and hand gestures.

Inuit traditions are something that Grey and counselors Mae Saunders and Eva Lapage, the three full-time staff members at Isuarsivik, all say they want to integrate even more into the Inuttitut-language treatment program at Isuarsivik— and into their own lives.

Saunders said she wants to learn how to throat sing because the conference “really did inspire us,” adding that she feels more proud than ever that she can speak Inuttitut because many of the other indigenous peoples she met had lost their traditional languages.

“We are not the only ones in the world who are facing problems— so let’s see what we can do,” said Lapage, who now wears a pearl she found in an oyster on a necklace.

Dave Forrest, president of the Isuarsivik’s board of directors, also attended the conference.

Isuarsivik is still “a fragile entity,” the only treatment centre in the North that’s run by Inuit in Inuttitut for Inuit, so the conference and its workshops were particularly worthwhile, he said.

“It inspires you to keep going,” Forrest said. “It makes that light burn a little brighter.”