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any event/access (i.e., leisure access card, golf
course access, etc.), lowering gas prices
• Determine what are the Best Practices and
promote them (e.g. How do other First Nations
communities succeed? more training that is
culturally appropriate - e.g. FKC)
• Increase awareness of mainstream funding and
grants
• Provide promotional materials (e.g. brochures,
DVDs, and “cool stuff” for kids)
• A number of ideas suggest the need to develop
a broader strategy around physical activity that
includes:
• famous athletes and speakers in materials (i.e.,
NHL)
• all-native hockey tournament
• women’s soccer players highlighted
• support for organized sport-paid coaches for
soccer and basketball
• update facilities and equipment
• help with wildlife programs
ActNow: Nutrition
Nutrition and physical activity are seen to
go hand in hand in many respects, and this is
particularly true in terms of work within the
Aboriginal Diabetes Initiative. When asked
to provide guidance on how best to promote
healthy eating in First Nations communities the
participants stressed that it will be important to
address issues and actions in the areas of access,
traditional foods, education/awareness, and school
based approaches:
Access:
• Lack of resources to purchase healthy foods.
• Cost (isolated communities).
• Traditional Food Promotion:
• Seasonal traditional food preparation.
• Researching nutritional value (i.e. Ca2+).
• Food security.
• Food safety preparation (legislation).
• School-based Policies and Promotion:
• Healthy menu development.
• Serving traditional foods.
• Serving healthy foods.
• Education:
• Small, gradual steps to sustainability.
• multi-media.
• Practical activity sheets.
• Community-based training.
Injury Prevention
The TFNHP sets as one of its goals the
establishment of appropriate programs to assist
First Nations to deal with the most pressing health
promotion and disease and injury prevention
issues affecting their communities, so that the
incidence of preventable diseases and injuries in
the First Nations population becomes comparable
to that of other British Columbians. The input
from the 2007 Gathering encouraged that ‘injury
prevention’ be reframed to include a wider
number of injuries than the initial items identified
in the TFNHP. Consistent with that, the participants
at the 2008 Gathering defined effective injury
prevention within a tripartite process in broader
terms focusing on a wide variety of ‘risks’:
Injury prevention is seen to include:
Suicide:
• Alcohol, copycats, bullying, self-harm, intent to
self-injure.
• motor Vehicle:
• Car seat, booster seat, drugs, alcohol.
Alcohol:
• Water safety, domestic violence, family
violence.
• Home Safety:
• Access to cleaning agents, fire, electrical.
Child Safety:
• Young age drinking.
• Trapped in old fridges and cars.
• Playground equipment.
• Bike safety.
Effective Strategies include:
• NAYSPS/ASCIRT/FAST.
• Education.
• media.
• Enforcement.
• Community ownership.
• Holistic approach – include arts, contemporary,
traditional.
• Traditional intergenerational teaching.
• Community based activities such as clean-ups,
and funding workshops.
FNHC can address injury prevention within the
TFNHP by emphasizing:
• Culture.
• Dedicated funding.
• Surveillance.
• Database.
• Getting funding where needed.
• Youth involvement at tripartite level.
• more human resources.
• Offering solutions rather than just presenting
statistics.
• Experiential messages from people who
survived.
• media campaign.
Traditional Medicine
Reduced access to traditional lifestyles, food
and medicine has contributed directly to the
diabetes epidemic in First Nations communities.
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VANCOUVER, bC • mAY 20 - 21 , 2008