The Canadian social security system is usually thought of as a bundle of rights and programs that collectively constitute a "social safety net." The metaphor "safety net" is instructive. It implies that normally people have what they need, and that the net is a kind of insurance against catastrophe if it should happen that someone "falls" off from the platform of "normal" self-reliance and prosperity. The Canadian social safety net is made up of a blend of income security, health and social insurance programs and a constantly changing array of "social adjustment" services, designed to help those who are having difficulty staying on the platform to "adjust" to mainstream expectations.

The principal mechanisms of the Canadian social security system include social assistance, employment insurance, the Canada Health Plan, the Canada and Quebec Pension Plans, Old Age Security and guaranteed income supplements for seniors, housing programs for low income people, and a somewhat transient array of other programs that come and go depending on political spending priorities and available cash, including education and training subsidies, tax credits, and programs aimed at helping "disadvantaged" groups to find their place within the mainstream of Canadian social and economic life.

A basic assumption of the Canadian social security system is that only ten percent of the population will ever really need the safety net, and that between ninety and ninety-three percent will remain healthy, and secure in their place on the platform of mainstream prosperity. Mac Saulis points out that in many Aboriginal communities over ninety percent of the population would have to be categorized as being out of the mainstream in terms of their current reliance on social assistance, housing subsidies and other aspects of the social safety net.

In the Introduction to this document, we began our discussion with a fundamental assertion that merely tinkering with and adjusting the Canadian social security system for Aboriginal communities has not, and will not, work. We believe that a starting place for Aboriginal social security reform must be to re-conceptualize what social security actually means for Aboriginal people, such that what is "secured" is human well-being and prosperity, or what the Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People refers to as "whole health" (RCAP, Vol. 3:34).

The following points summarize the implications of that starting place for this discussion.

In their book, Why Some People are Healthy and Others are Not, Evens, Barer and Marmor (1994) draw together a useful synthesis of work that spans at least a dozen disciplines as they compile available evidence on the critical conditions and factors that determine human health. Their work was proceeded by a number of creative leaps in health thinking that gradually encouraged a considerable broadening of perspective from the dominant medical model, "which tends to focus on disease rather than health, and is preoccupied with bio-mechanical problems and solutions". (Evans & Stoddard, 1994: 31)

In Canada, milestones in health thinking can be traced as follows.

We share this brief history of health thinking in Canada for the following reasons:

In our professional practice, we have undertaken a simple and extremely revealing exercise in dozens of Canadian and American Indigenous communities, as well as in many non-Aboriginal settings in both rural and urban settings.

A representative cross-section of community members are gathered in a meeting or workshop. There are usually children, youth, men, women, elders, professionals, unemployed people, traditionalists, entrepreneurs -- as wide a diversity of people as we can get.

We then ask variations of the following "simple" question: "What is it that people here need to have in their lives in order to have a good life, to have well-being and prosperity?" The results have been remarkably similar across many communities and cultures and also quite constant with what the "experts" are now saying in the research literature.

What follows is a synthesis of this thinking, drawn from work with First Nations, Inuit, and Metis communities across Canada between 1994 and 1998. This list should not be seen as a model to be copied, but rather a proof that in Aboriginal communities people already know what the determinants of health are and that part of our work in promoting community healing is to mirror back to them what they already know in ways that promote learning and action.

The Determinants of Health to be "Secured" in Social Security Reform

Health status relative to each of the following determinants needs to be defined (in terms of a local community standard of well-being), measured and assessed (in terms of current realities and conditions) and analyzed (in terms of what is needed to transform health conditions.

We often ask people to display their thinking about determinants in labeled circles or balloons on a large sheet of paper (see diagram at the top of the next page). We then ask participants to select one determinant (for example, strong families) and to draw connecting lines to the other determinants that must also be addressed in order to have strong healthy families. It quickly becomes evident that most, if not all of the other determinants are intimately related to having healthy families, and that in fact all of the determinants of well-being are interdependent with all the others. As obvious as this point may seem, many mainstream health practitioners are still struggling to understand the determinants of health model. Because of the nature of their scientific and technical training, it is difficult for many health professionals to escape a linear, sequential and causal way of looking at health problems, and instead see an integrated organic system of inter-related factors.
 
 
 

In our own work with such professionals we have found that the medicine wheel is a powerful conceptual tool for helping people to understand holistic and integrative approaches to thinking about health. As we stated in our introduction, the medicine wheel may be thought of as an ancient formulation of the determinants of well-being model. It appears on the surface to be very simple, almost too simple to deal with the complexity of fourteen interactive variables. Actually, it is far more sophisticated then the determinants

imodel, or any of the population health models derived from it.

This is not merely an attempt to say "my model is better than your model". The usefulness of any conceptual model of health development is its ability to show the relationships between the various elements in the process. The determinants model focuses on clusters of determinants, but does not facilitate seeing the whole system within which people are living.

We have found that by using the medicine wheel model in conjunction with the determinants of health analysis, a very useful multi-dimensional picture emerges that can be used to understand not only the interactive relationships between various clusters of health determinants, but also the nature of the overall social system within which the transformation of health conditions must occur.

The term "medicine" in tribal tradition refers to any substance, process, teaching, song, story or symbol that helps to restore balance in human beings and their communities. The medicine wheel is an ancient symbol which represents an entire world view (a way of seeing and knowing) and the teachings that go with it.

We have not found a more powerful tool for modeling what is really going on in development processes in any of the sciences and disciplines of the world.

At a midsummer gathering of indigenous nations held at Alkali Lake, British Columbia, Canada in 1986, Phil Lane Sr., a distinguished Yankton Sioux elder, was talking to a large gathering of tribal people representing over thirty-five different tribes and nations.

He held a stick in his hand, and with it he drew a circle in the sand. "Our people used the circle to explain many things," he said. "For instance, the circle represents the hoop of the people. All of the people are a part. No one is excluded. The hurt of one is the hurt of all. The honour of one is the honour of all."

In this way he explained a very simple idea that has very complex implications. The circle means that everything is connected to everything else in life. Nothing can happen to any one part of the circle without affecting all the other parts.

"The human people are not the only people in the circle," the old man went on to explain. "The mineral people, the plant people, those that crawl, those that walk, those that fly, the four leggeds, even the air itself and the water and the stars and planets beyond number--all of these are part of the circle, and so are you, and so am I. What happens to any part of the circle happens to all of us." And thus the elder introduced the concept of deep ecology; of the profound interdependence of all things.

The medicine wheel is simply the circle divided into four parts. Seeing things in fourness, or what Jung called "quaternity," is very common to most indigenous people in the world (we were all once indigenous somewhere).

The Person

Each human has the potential to develop capacities in four interrelated areas of life:

At a primary level, most communities consist of children, youth, adults, and elders, as well as other special interest groupings which may also be important to consider because such groups have experiences that are different from the mainstream within the community. Categories of this type might include single mothers, people in recovery, the unemployed, handicapped people, etc.

Using the medicine wheel model of individual potentiality, it is possible to generate a framework for understanding what is really happening in the lives of any particular group within the community. For example, it is possible to consider the conditions and needs of unemployed youth. Their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual well-being can be looked at, both in terms of what it is now, but also what it would be like if it was good (in the ideal sense). Such an examination can best be done by groups of unemployed youth themselves, with the support of those who have allied with them, including a skilled facilitator.

From such a reflection process, a base-line description of current conditions and realities, as well as of the root causes of problems, can be developed. Out of such an analysis will come an understanding of what is needed, and if the momentum from the inquiry process is properly harnessed, one important outcome will be focused action aimed at addressing the challenges faced by unemployed youth. (Appendix A includes a full description of the Community Story Framework, a community analysis, planning and mobilization tool which uses the basic model of the medicine wheel to guide this type of process.)

In each of the four areas (mental, emotional, physical, spiritual), a list of capacities and potentialities can be developed. Some authors call this kind of list a competency profile. The wheel representing the individual person only makes sense, however, if it is seen in relationship to the greater circles of which it is a part.

Appendix B consists of a sample list of potentialities which can be associated with each of the four points of the medicine wheel. They are organized according to the four cardinal directions (compass points). Assigning one of the four cardinal directions to each of the points on the circle is another common way of using the medicine wheel. The device of attaching symbolic meaning related to human capacity to each of the cardinal directions is one that has been used by indigenous people in North America for centuries. In this rendition, a person sees him or herself at the center of the wheel. In order to be a whole balanced person, the gifts and qualities of all four directions must be explored and developed.

The Family or Clan
 
 

Healthy families and clans hold their members as a mother holds her children. As children grow in strength and wisdom, only gradually do they learn to be responsible, and to care for those who have cared for them. The family is the womb out of which the community and the nation spring. It is impossible to build a healthy and prosperous community unless and until the families within that community are healthy and strong.

Within the family are four interrelated dimensions of activity and potentiality that are constantly at play:

What follows is a model (or map) of the dimensions that are involved in developing a whole community, in its many dimensions and aspects.

Remember that in this study, we are concerned with the challenge of promoting sustainable well-being and prosperity and the unfolding of human potential. As we understand it, individuals have needs and potentiality in the areas of mental, emotional, physical and spiritual development. Individuals don't emerge out of thin air. Nor do they prosper disconnected from other human beings. All of us come from some kind of family, and all of our families had patterns of thinking, of human relations, of beliefs and values, and of physical survival that shaped us.

Families in turn live within communities like fish live in water. The invisible web of relationships that make up community life can either have the aggregate affect of leading to human well-being and prosperity, or to its opposite. Like individual people or families, each community has its own commonality (the personality of the group). In order to effectively initiate strategies that will alter (for the better) the collective habits and relationships that are affecting people's lives within a particular community, it is helpful to be specific about the nature of those relationships and habits.

We map the processes of community health development in four interdependent areas of activity and focus:

1. Political and Administrative - having to do with how power is arranged, how decisions are made and how the governance and management of the community's affairs occurs. Within community development processes, a key indicator of health in this area is the quality and effectiveness of people's participation in matters that affect their lives.

2. Social - having to do with the patterns of human relations, and including such related areas as kinship patterns, social protocol, conflict resolution and communication patterns. The social category is especially concerned with the climate of openness and support for individual and group efforts to bring positive changes to their own lives or to the community in general. A useful indicator of health is the degree to which the community is open to and supportive of learning. To what degree is the community characterized by its ability to learn its way into the future?

3. Economic and Environmental - the economic life of the community needs to be understood both in terms of how (and to what extent) people get what they need in order to sustain themselves (in the physical sense of basic needs), as well as in terms of the community's relationships with the natural environment (the eco-system) upon which long-term economic well-being depends. To get a clear picture of the impact of current economic realities, it is important to go beyond income generation to questions related to a) how economic activities are affecting other areas of human well-being; b) how the natural environment is being affected; and c) to the development and maintenance of long-term sustainable systems of production. In many communities, moving from dependency to self-reliance is also a critical component of economic development.

4. Cultural and Spiritual - this category refers to prevailing patterns of beliefs, values, morals and goals that constitute the software hidden beneath the surface of community life. Both what people say they believe in (the espoused or ideal culture) and what they tend to actively do in the pattern of daily life (the lived or real culture) are important. A vital strategy in mobilizing communities is to call people to the values by which they want to live. It is also a fact of life in many communities that there are multiple cultures and value systems that compete and collide within the social space of the community. Usually one or more are dominant, and others struggle for recognition and acceptance. An important indicator of well-being in the spiritual/cultural area is the presence of a vigorous dialogue on values, and a climate of deep mutual respect and appreciation for diversity. The capacity to envision a healthy and sustainable future, and to muster the human will to move together toward creating that future, is perhaps the most important indicator of community well-being that we know.

By the wider world we mean the entire human world outside the community. It can refer to the tribe or nation, the various levels of government up to the nation state and beyond, other countries and regions, or the global monetary market and regulatory systems. Communities do not exist in isolation, free from the impact of the world around them, any more than an individual person does.

In thinking about community health development, it is important to be able to see how any particular community is organically linked to the wider world in which it exists. For example, what happens in the board rooms of major corporations in Europe or America can affect the political and economic well-being of many ordinary people, their families and their communities in Saudi Arabia, Papua New Guinea or Nigeria. A change in the price of oil, (perhaps as a result of a political decision of the Arab Emirate in partnership with other allies) can affect who has a job and who doesn't in Alberta, Newfoundland or Louisiana.

When people lose their jobs, families are affected. Under such stresses, the use of alcohol and drugs and the incidence of family violence tends to increase. And, of course, children are definitely affected. A child who is traumatized by family violence or a marriage break-up can experience intellectual and emotional paralysis. Unable to concentrate or remember or focus, the child fails at school, and begins to act out in ways that cause her to lose friends and to be labeled by teachers and social workers as a problem child. Perhaps a specific label is added to this diagnosis, such as hyperactive and the child may even be given a drug such as Ritalin to control the symptoms.

From this example, taken from actual cases in Canada, it is possible to see what North American indigenous elders meant when they told us "everything is related to everything else." By viewing the world we live within as an interactive system, it is possible to see connections between things that people believe and do in countries and institutions very far away, with what happens in the most intimate relationships (husband and wife, parent and child) in some of the most remote villages of the world (e.g. the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories or the Niger River Valley in Nigeria). While it is usually not possible to influence or control global political and economic processes, it is possible to create local systems that are not so dependent on the markets or the shifting

sand of political factions.

So, when thinking about community health development in any specific situation, it is vital to understand the wider world in which "the community" exists. Essentially the same four interactive categories which were used to describe the community level can also be applied to the level of the "wider world," but the impact they have on the development process is different enough to warrant further explanation.

Fitting it all Together

When we talk about human and community development, we are talking about all of the following:

No matter at what level you try to intervene, you are actually always dealing with all the levels.

For example, an economic development officer in the eastern Canadian province of Newfoundland may be trying to work on job creation. She is struggling against the reality that the economic climate of the region in which the community is located is depressed because of the collapse of the cod fishing industry, due to over fishing. This problem is made worse by the fact that governments are short of money and can't afford to keep the entire population on welfare or subsidized make-work programs. These are all global conditions (i.e. the wider world in the model) affecting local development efforts in Newfoundland. Considering the ecology and economy of the region, the economic development officer tries to encourage people to start small businesses. But many families have either been fishermen or fish-industry-dependent for generations. There is a prevailing belief (mostly unconscious) in many families that if you can't go fishing (or some other sea harvest activity) there is really no option except welfare or unemployment insurance. Additionally, the hard times caused many men to turn to alcohol for comfort. With alcohol comes a legion of social problems affecting families and children.

Clearly, in this case of Newfoundland traditional fishing communities, the challenge of reviving the economy can only be addressed by taking into consideration all four interacting levels in the model (individual, families, whole communities, and global conditions). Indeed, after the initial shock (1994), what has now begun to happen in Newfoundland is that communities have started coming together to talk, to support each other, and to build solutions. Many creative alternatives are still emerging. But almost everywhere, when positive development has begun, it has emerged out of a community re-creation process, and not out of the implementation of a technical solution.

In this section we have outlined the dimensions of need and potential growth within individuals, families and groups, communities and society at large (i.e. the world). Basically, we are presenting a tool for thinking about how the various dimensions and levels fit together and interact. Each level of development (presented in the model) takes place within a broader level.

Individuals develop within families, groups and organizations. Families develop within communities, and so do groups and organizations. Communities and organizations develop within the context of surrounding societal and global conditions. The diagram below illustrates how all the dimensions and levels mutually influence each other.

The Wheel Turns

The models and concepts presented so far have identified the areas of need and potentiality in human and community development. What it has not shown is anything of the process of change. What follows introduces the key elements that drive growth or development. The wheel, made of interlocking wheels within wheels (see diagram above) turns through processes of learning and transformation. These processes are propelled by certain key dynamics of change.

Part I of the report has been exploring a conceptual framework for human well-being and prosperity, the true foundation for a viable social security system for Aboriginal communities. The first section put forward a working list of the determinants of health, synthesized from consultative processes with many Aboriginal communities. A second section used the medicine wheel as a way of expanding the determinants of health approach into an integrated model which can be used as a basis for integrated community healing and development planning. This next section explores principles which can be used to guide the development of a social security system for Aboriginal community.

What’s a Principle?

A principle, as we are using the term is a statement of basic truth about some aspect of the process of human and community transformation. It articulates what works or what doesn’t, what is needed, what must be avoided, how the process must proceed, and what it must include if the outcome is to be authentic human well-being and prosperity, and not some counterfeit. And there are many counterfeits. Much is said and done in the name of "health progress", "development", "improvement" and "prosperity" that either ends up benefiting a few at the expense of many others, benefitting no one, or else bringing real harm to people or to the earth.

The following presentation of sixteen principles is the outcome of consultations and experiences with Aboriginal elders and communities from all across North America, as well as systemmatic reflection based on many field applications. There are, of course, many ways these principles could be expressed, and so these are offered as a work in progress, which needs to be adapted by each community for their own particular needs and way of expressing themselves.

1. Human Beings Can Transform Their World

The conditions of our lives are not unchangeable givens. We are not trapped in the world as we know it. How things are now is not how they always were nor how they will always be in the future. Indeed, the most fundamental characteristic of the universe is change. Although many of us live within the illusion of permanence, the reality is that our lives and the world around us are in a constant state of change.

Many challenges and difficulties we face as human beings everywhere on the planet are either the result of our own actions or those of other people. To a large degree, human beings make the human experience what it is. We continuously violate each other and the natural world upon which all life on earth depends. As a human family, we dwell within the web of relationships we have made with other people, nature, and the spiritual world.

The totality of the impact that web of relationships has on our lives, on future generations and on the earth itself is what can be referred to as the human predicament. Prosperity and poverty, sickness and wellness, justice and oppression, war and peace -- all of these are products of those fundamental relationships.

It is of the utmost value to know that those relationships can be changed. It may be very difficult, it may take great vision, sacrifice and effort, and it may require time to unfold, but the people need to know that healing and development are possible.

In practice, the application of this principle implies making a shift from being a passive recipient, or victim, of the realities and conditions within which we find ourselves living; in other words, "stepping into history" (Freire, 1970). Moving from the passive to the active state begins in consciousness. It begins in how we see ourselves within the process of life as it unfolds.

This active approach of entering into a creative relationship with life, and of consciously making choices that will lead to the making of a better world is the choice of "stepping into history." Gandhi and his followers did it in India. Thousands did it in the former Soviet Union. Nelson Mandela and the ANC did it in South Africa. Phyllis and Andy Chelsea did it in Alkali Lake, British Columbia. And when they did it (each of them), they changed the course of history.

2. Development Comes from Within

The process of human and community development unfolds from within each person, relationship, family, organization, community or nation. Outsiders can often provide catalytic support in the form of inspiration, technical backstopping, training or simple love and caring. But because the essence of what development is entails learning and the transformation of consciousness, there is no way to escape the need for an inner-directed flow of energy.

For example, a child learning to ride a bicycle may need a certain amount of encouragement, and may even require a bigger person running alongside her to support the bike while she learns how to balance. Still, there is no getting around the need for the child herself to get up on the bike and to try to ride it. No amount of explaining, or riding the bike back and forth in front of the child to demonstrate how to ride, will replace doing it.

In a similar way, people who are struggling to learn new patterns of life and to transform their world need to drive change processes themselves if those processes are to be effective and sustainable. Development comes from within.

3. Healing is a Necessary Part of Development

Healing the past, closing up old wounds, and learning healthy habits of thought and action to replace dysfunctional thinking and disruptive patterns of human relations is a necessary part of the process of sustainable development.

Many wonderful projects and programs have been destroyed because the people

involved in them were unable to trust each other, to work together, to communicate without alienating one another, or to refrain from undermining each other, tearing each other down and attacking each other.

In some communities, alcohol destroys human potential and causes people to retreat within the bottle to deal with problems that need to be addressed in cooperation with others. In other communities, generations of in-fighting and mutual hostility across family, cultural, clans, religious or political lines block any chances of unified action. In still other organizations and communities, certain personalities or groups hold the reins of power, and thereby control the conversation of the community to such an extent that other people simply fall silent and retreat.

Many individuals, because of their family background and personal history, carry a great deal of resentment or fear or numbness that serves to paralyze them in terms of building effective relationships with other people. These old hurts, and the habitual responses to hurt that people carry, may well be there for good reason. Some people (and sometimes whole populations) have experienced horrendous suffering, and are carrying the burden of unresolved pain and conflict inside them. It is therefore critical for people to learn that these habits of the heart and the dysfunctional behaviours that go with them can be overcome and left behind. The processes for doing just that are what we mean when we say "healing". As long as these habits remain in place, people will be handicapped, and even paralyzed and blocked from full participation in development processes.

4. No Vision, No Development

A vision of who we can become and what a sustainable world would be like works as a powerful magnet, drawing us to our potential. Where there is no vision, there is no development.

If people cannot imagine a condition other than the one they live within now, then they are trapped. It is only when we are able to see ourselves in terms of our potential and within healthier and more sustainable conditions that we can begin to move towards creating those conditions within ourselves and in our relationships with the world around us.

Helping people to develop a vision of a healthier and more sustainable future that they can believe in and identify with is therefore one of the primary building blocks of success in development work.

More deeply, culture is the soil in which the tree of identity has its roots. People's sense of who they are, and of their self-efficacy is bound up in their (often unconscious) connections to their cultures. To disconnect or alienate people from their cultural foundations is like plucking a plant from the soil in which it is rooted.

The eminent American futurist, Willis Harman, had this to say about culture:

Not only do distinct cultures have unique perceptions not experienced by other cultures, but they also have unique gifts and abilities. They can know things, see things, experience things, and do things that people from other cultures cannot. This is a very important discovery. It means that each distinct cultural group has people with unique strengths and capacities upon which healing and development can be based. You cannot build on what is wrong or missing. You have to build on who people actually are and what they have. It also means that the effective approaches for solving actual social and economic problems may look very different in different cultural communities.

Following is a list of some key areas related to healing and development that need to be guided from within the culture of the people. We spell out those points in some detail in order to stress that almost all cultures have ways of doing all of these things. It is very

important to help people to discover their own ways of addressing each of these areas.

6. Interconnectedness: The Holistic Approach

Everything is connected to everything else. Therefore, every aspect of our healing and development is related to all the others (personal, social, cultural, political, economic, etc.). When we work on any one part, the whole circle is affected.

The primary implication of the principle of interconnectedness for development practice is the requirement of taking a whole systems approach. This means that we can only really understand a particular development challenge in terms of the relationships between that issue and the rest of the life-world in which that issue is rooted.

For example, in many tribal communities, alcohol and drug abuse can not be understood by focusing on the medical fact of chemical dependency. It is only when we consider the historical and cultural context in which the abuse is taking place that it becomes clear how substance abuse (in those communities) is a social phenomenon with profound spiritual roots. Once this was recognized, many North American tribal communities began to address the issue of alcoholism by combining personal healing, counselling, economic development and cultural revitalization. All of these dimensions needed to be addressed on a community-wide basis before individuals in significant numbers began to leave alcohol behind. Many communities that have taken this holistic approach have gone a long ways toward eliminating alcohol from the community system.

The principle of interconnectedness provides the following critical guidelines for community work. Personal growth and healing, the strengthening of families, and community development must all go hand-in-hand. Working at any one of these levels without attending to the others is not enough. Personal and social development, as well as top-down and bottom-up approaches must be balanced. This is the true meaning of a holistic approach in community development.

The point is this: we all must live in a common social environment. We have recently begun to learn that if we poison the air we breathe and the water we drink (i.e. the environmental commons), we are poisoning ourselves. Similarly, if we poison our relationships with other people who live in the same social world as we do (the social commons), then we and our children will sooner or later discover that we have poisoned our own lives.

The primary implications for community healing and development of the principle, "the hurt of one is the hurt of all; the honour of one is the honour of all," are fairly straight-

forward:

What we think about expands in our lives. If we espouse separateness, we create it. For this reason, increasing the community's capacity to see itself as inter-connected -- as one -- is a very powerful strategy for generating sustained cooperative action. Because we live in a world of competing dreams and ideologies, it is vital to nurture and deepen the community's ability to be animated by the vision of our common oneness and our mutual responsibility to serve and protect one another.

8. Unity

Unity means oneness. Without unity the common oneness that makes (seemingly) separate human beings into community is impossible. Without a doubt, disunity is the primary disease of community.

Science tells us that the physical universe is made up of billions upon billions of tiny particles called atoms, bound together in fields of energy. These energy fields take many different shapes and patterns: stars and planets, trees and rocks, fish and fowl, and human beings. Clearly there is some cohesive force that holds the particles together in the forms that we see in our world. Imagine what would happen if the cohesive force that holds all of the particles together that make up the Rocky Mountains were to disappear. The mountains would simply crumble into dust. In the human world, the cohesive force that binds us all together is love. While most spiritual traditions on the planet have been trying to tell us this for centuries, science is only now beginning to come to grips with it. We have now learned, for example, that people who feel the love, support and caring of family, friends and community have stronger immune systems, and are therefore more resistant to disease than people who feel isolated, alone and cut off.

When human beings are connected to each other in a complex web of relationships for mutual support and cooperation, it doesn't matter what area of life these relationships focus on (governance, economics, recreation, the arts, etc.). If the feelings between the people are good, then the enterprise will probably flourish. Conversely, if the feelings go bad, the enterprise will probably fall apart, no matter how clever the plans and strategies of the group may be.

What is critical to realize is that building and monitoring common oneness (i.e. community) requires the involvement of the human heart and spirit, as well as our minds (thinking) and our physical energies (i.e. time and work).

Unity is the term we use for the cohesive force that holds communities of people together. It is a fact of our nature as human beings that we need the love, support, caring and respect of others in our struggle to heal ourselves and develop our communities. Unity is the starting place for development, and as development unfolds, unity deepens. The strategic implications of this vital principle for Aboriginal community healing and development is that restoring and maintaining unity must be seen as a pre-requisite at the foundation of the community healing process.

9. Participation

Participation is the active engagement of the minds, hearts and energy of people in the process of their own healing and development. Because of the nature of what development really is, unless there is meaningful and effective participation, there is no development.

On the personal level, we use the term volition (the exercise of human will) to refer to the capacity to focus, to choose, to adopt goals, to persevere and to complete what we set out to do. We refer to this capacity as will power. Nothing can be achieved in our life (and all of our hidden potential remains dormant) unless and until we engage our own volition. As human beings, we must direct our energies toward a goal in order to achieve it.

This is also true of communities, and the collective will of the community is engaged through the process of participation. Since authentic development is driven from within, through learning (i.e. acquiring capacity) for personal and social transformation, there is no escaping the necessity of involving the people whose development is being promoted in every aspect of the process.

Participation is to development as movement is to dance or the making of sound is to music. If you take away sound, you have no music. If you take away participation, you have no development.

The term participation is used to refer to many different types of involvement on the part of community members. Not all of these are equally valid in view of the definition of authentic development explored above. Appendix C presents a chart describing these various types of participation in terms of their relevance for community healing and development work, as well as some common barriers and obstacles to participation.

This type of "development" is one of the primary causes for the alienation of hundreds of millions of youth around the world from their communities and cultures. It is often the principal cause of the breakdown of law and order and the true source of many ethnic conflicts, some of them prolonged and deadly.

Unless justice animates all that we do in human and community work, what we are doing is not development.

In down-to-earth terms, this understanding implies the following:

12. Morals and Ethics

Sustainable human and community development requires a moral foundation. When morals decline and basic ethical principles are violated, development stops. Essentially, moral and ethical standards describe how human beings must think and act toward themselves, the Creator, each other, and the earth. There has never been a successful society in the history of the planet that did not have moral standards, laws and protocol that people were required to follow.

Moral and ethical standards are not mere limitations imposed on our freedom by the conservative or the prudish. On the contrary, these standards describe where the boundaries of well-being may be found. They are like highway signs that tell us to slow down on this corner, to be careful on that hill, or to drive with caution when the road is slippery. We can choose to ignore them, but we do so at our own peril.

In healing and development work, the violation of moral and ethical standards can destroy months and even years of good work. Like a young plant just breaking ground and experiencing the heat of the sun and the strength of the wind and weather for the first time, developing people are often very vulnerable. It doesn't take much to destroy their faith and confidence in themselves, or in the processes of growth. In those early stages, people often look to their facilitative leaders and professional helpers to be role models of wellness. In a sense, these facilitators are living proof that the process is real, and that the dreams people have dared to believe in can come true. Later, when they become stronger and more self-reliant, they will learn to see the strength they are looking for within themselves. But even then, the violation of ethical and moral standards can seriously undermine personal growth, healing, and community development processes. The most common violations that cause trouble all over the world are the following:

Learning is the process of acquiring new information, knowledge, wisdom, skills or capacities that enable us to meet new challenges and to further develop our potential. Learning leads to relatively enduring changes in behaviour. Individuals, families, organizations, communities, and even whole nations of people need to learn.

Because learning is the key dynamic at the heart of human development (in one sense, since we can say that human development is a process of learning), there is no way of separating learning from the process of community health development either. Unless people are learning, community health development is not happening. This principle tells us that the promotion of various kinds of learning is an important part of what individuals and agencies who are facilitating community healing and development initiatives must be doing.

For purposes of devising learning strategies in healing and development work, we have found that distinguishing the following categories (or types) of learning has been helpful.

Likewise, in community health development work, it is much more fruitful to focus energy on building the alternative than it is to try to oppose and undermine what we do not like. This in no way implies that we should allow injustice or unhealthy conditions to continue. The principle of moving to the positive suggests that we should clearly visualize what it is we wish to achieve in terms of positive conditions (health, prosperity, social justice, racial unity) and begin building that. Instead, many people focus their program energies on trying to eliminate the perceived obstacles to the things they wish to achieve.

Consider the example of disunity in a community. One approach to solving this problem might be to identify the people we believe are the source of the problem and to attempt to convince them to change. Unfortunately, when confronted with a challenge to one's character or personal behaviour, many people become defensive. A usual response includes one or all of the following: a) deny that there is a problem, b) discredit the person who challenges you, c) blame someone else for the problem, or d) justify the behaviour for which one is being criticized and increase it.

Another approach to disunity would be to gather together those people who want unity and to begin to behave toward each other in a unified way. The result of this strategy is that you have created unity. Other people can join this new pattern, but if they wish to partake of its benefits, they will need to behave according to the principles and rules that produce unity.

While this may be a somewhat simplified example, it is in fact a very powerful community healing and development strategy. Many North American tribal communities have already created sobriety movements that will eventually end the terrible burden of community alcoholism using this strategy. Recovering alcoholics and non-drinkers formed core groups and worked on their own healing as well as the creation of healthy human relations between them. Gradually these islands of health attracted others, and the core groups grew in strength and influence until a critical mass was reached and whole communities were transformed.

In whole health development processes, the most powerful strategies for change always involve positive role modeling and the creation of living examples of the solutions we are proposing. That is why, as development practitioners, we must strive to be living examples of the changes we wish to see in the world.

This principle also applies to development-promoting organizations. A sick organization cannot promote health. An organization crippled with in-fighting and disunity cannot build community in the world. Unless our organizations reflect the principles and values we espouse in our work with the people, why should anyone take us seriously? By walking the path, we make the path visible.

D. The Big Picture

There is no escaping the fact that Canadian Aboriginal people are a part of the human family. And while it may be easier not to think about it, there can be no doubt that whatever is happening to the rest of the world is also happening to Canadian Indigenous people.

Much has been written in the past several decades about large global patterns and trends that are sweeping across all boundaries and affecting everyone on the planet, regardless of geography, culture or national identity.

Following is an abbreviated summary of global patterns and trends that we believe are of particular significance to the process of promoting well-being and prosperity in Canadian Aboriginal communities. In addition to listing the trends, we have selected two of them for further discussion because we feel these two will have an extraordinary impact on community healing and the process of social security reform.

• First that Aboriginal people will find valuable and committed allies in all walks of life who are already working to promote many of the same trends of changes in society at large as will need to occur in Aboriginal communities as healing and community restoration proceeds.
• Second, Aboriginal communities may find valuable resources and models to learn from because there has already been an enormous and extremely diverse wave of experimentation in alternative approaches to economic, political, social and personal transformation. This process is still occurring worldwide.

This section includes follow-up discussions on two of the seven trends listed above; namely, a) global corporations versus local economies and, b) people's empowerment versus political and economic repression. As we mentioned above, we have undertaken further discussion on these trends because we feel they are (or will have) a profound impact on community healing and the building of an effective social security system for Aboriginal communities.

The Canadian government's fiscal policy has been radically altered by "the debt crisis" and subsequent "cutbacks" that were "necessary" in order to "balance the budget." While it is beyond the scope of this study to engage in an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon, we feel it is critical for Aboriginal communities to understand that what has happened (and is still happening) in Canada is part of a worldwide pattern. Key features of that pattern are variations on the following themes:

Implications

We see a number of important implications in these political and economic trends that will impact the process of building a sustainable social security system for Aboriginal communities.

In places where the response has been positive, there has been a rapid development of what is known as the "civil society" sector, consisting of a diverse array of voluntary non-government and private organizations all working to improve various aspects of human well-being. Networks of organizations from all sectors (government, non-government, voluntary and private) have formed "collaboratives" or organized coalitions to carry on important work. One of the hallmarks of this movement, wherever it occurs, is that it works to empower and engage people in building solutions to human problems, and further, it takes guidance, direction and inspiration from the people it most seeks to serve.

In contrast, in places where the powers that be have attempted to silence (or simply ignore) the voices of community people (or various parts of the community), the outcomes have been decidedly unpleasant. Depending on the nature of the barriers those in power employ to silence and disempower community people, and also depending on a wide range of cultural, social and economic factors, the consequences have included various combinations of the following.

The most important implications of this trend for community healing and Aboriginal

social security reform are as follows.

In this chapter we have provided a framework for thinking about community healing and Aboriginal social security reform. Our discussion first proposed definitions of social security and of community healing that are anchored in the concept of "whole health" as discussed in the Royal Commission report. This approach implies that what must be "secured" is sustainable human well-being.

In order to understand what such a broad concept of social security would mean in practice, and how community healing is related to it, two complementary models were discussed, namely, the determinants of health model and what we believe is its ancient Aboriginal parallel, the medicine wheel model.

We then presented a discussion on principles to guide action. The intent of this discussion was to provide a frame of reference for developing and evaluating strategies for healing and change that are in harmony with what Aboriginal cultures know about who we are as human beings, and how human beings heal, learn and develop their potentialities.

Finally, we presented a big picture discussion intended to highlight some of the important global patterns and trends that are influencing the social and political context within which Aboriginal community healing and social security reform are taking place.

In Part II, we will provide a summary of some of the major health and healing challenges Aboriginal communities across Canada are facing.