Soowahlie Role Model Day shows community pride and leadership

Wednesday November 30, 2011

Community News

Measures of Success

Craig Hill/Voice photos

Mike Johnson congratulates Marcella Commodore for her sobriety and leadership at Soowahlie Role Model Day.

hen someone in the Soowahlie community finds themselves being sucked into a vortex of drug and alcohol abuse, where do they go and who do they talk with? Soowahlie councillor and healthcare worker Mike Johnson is their answer.

Soowahlie Nation administers their health services to about 225 band members. On November 15, as part of National Aboriginal Addictions Awareness Week, over seventy people gathered at Cultus Lake Elementary School for a celebration of sobriety and to hear 4 well respected members of the community speak to drug and alcohol and addiction.

Each year, Mike Johnson, who is the band's drug and alcohol, organizes a community dinner which features role model keynote speakers.

Last year, Johnson told the Voice that "we all learn from role models and I'm just presenting it here to the community so people can say 'I might try this', because all of these people are everyday people that come from meager backgrounds and have achieved something in their own fields and are reaching back to help people in their community."

This year, Johnson wanted to try something different and challenged other bands to don pedometers, which Fraser Health supplied, and walk for sobriety. The band who walked the furthest would win a fistful of pizza cards.

“We're doing it for 4-weeks but this week is really important because we want to beat other communities for the pizza cards,” said Johnson.

Although some bands expressed interest, none participated.

On Tuesday, each person who took the floor, told an impassioned tale of sacrifices and achievements, weaving together threads from their remarkable lives into an oral tapestry of Soowahlie history.

Originally, three people were slated to speak that evening, however one more was added to the agenda when Chief Otis Jasper asked Johnson if he could address band members. Other distinguished speakers joining Jasper as were Marcella Commodore, Albert James and Terry Prest.

Some spoke about their personal battle with drugs and alcohol. Others digressed about the steps they took to being successful and productive members of society giving insights on their inspirations and accomplishments.

Athlete Albert James is finding his niche in the world of sports. He plays all kinds of sports including volleyball, hockey and rugby, but lately has changed his focus and taken up baseball.

Commodore spoke about her life and battle with addiction. Eventually, she found the strength in herself to overcome her battle.

"I pray a lot and take part in our culture. I love Soowahlie. When I'm up there I feel more balanced," she said.

Everyone in the room, from elders to children lined up to hug Commodore who reveled in the love and support for her that was in the room.

Chief Jasper talked in more spiritual terms about addiction.

“The Creator brought good things and created nothing but goodness, why would he create evil,” he asked. “We’re the ones that created this evil.”

Prest talked about the father he never knew and how he came to terms with not knowing who his father was as well as his struggle with clinical depression as his past caught up with him.

"I couldn't help but be really moved by hearing their words and seeing their strength and their courage. I think it's so powerful for our community to hear each other's stories," he said.

"I was born in Chilliwack. Started out in Soowahlie but moved away to Quesnel. I lived there until I was about 7 with my mom and my stepdad. We moved back when I was 11."

"I never had a relationship with my father," he said. "For the longest time I thought I was okay with that and I didn't feel I lost anything because I didn't lose that relationship."

Albert James, Mike Johnson, Ron Preston and Victor Bisaillon preform the Coast Salish Anthem given to all Aboriginal nations by Chief Dan George.

"I started drinking and smoking pot and soon that's all I did. That was what I had become. I started going to the longhouse and learning more about our own history of Soowahlie and our grandparents and the struggles they had," said Preston.

Johnson brought in Health Promoter Gerri Grigg from www.quitnow.ca, who had a table set up with smoking cessation flyers and brochures meant to encourage and support people making a move to a cigarette-free lifestyle.

“Quitting smoking is the most important step you can take to better your health and save a ton of money and right now it’s supported by the provincial government and people can get the patch or gum for free, so there’s never been a better time.”

Carrielynn Victor performed with a box drum and sang some bluesy numbers but before she began she spoke a little bit about her life and how singing helped her through the difficult times.

“I’ve been on the healing path since I was 18. I started looking for a new way to live because in my teenage years I struggled with addiction," she said. "I didn't want to go to a centre where other people were putting their ideals onto me about what they thought sobriety means and that they thought addictions were and they thought I should do it," she said.

"But I was a little bit stubborn, so I started dissecting what addiction meant to me and looking for tools in my everyday life that would help me stay on the good path and I think for the most part it came down to what was I doing when I was addicted that I wasn't doing when I was active in my addiction."

“Honesty, openness and a certain amount of confidence and I thought if I took those elements of my personality that I had the strength to be when I was high or drunk in my everyday personality, that I might not be a slave to them all the time and sometimes that worked. But it really set a good tone for my life path and I really tried to sing more,” explained Victor.

Victor, also a mother of a 2-year-old boy, said she knew what it was like to sit in the car for hours while her parents drank in the bar and would talk with her brother about how when they grew up their kids weren’t going to have to endure what they did.

“When we grow up our kids are not going to have to hide under the tables while we were fighting,” she said. “When we grow up our kids are not going to have to go hungry because we were spending all the money on drugs and alcohol.”

One speaker emanated community pride saying that she was “really glad that our community is coming together for an event like this, it makes me feel proud to be a Soowahlie member."

"I look around and see many, role models in this world and it's nice to see so many of our young people who are still in school, who are still graduating and I feel proud when I hear from their parents talking about how proud they feel about their kids being in school," said Commodore. "Now I see the growth, the courage and the strength of Soowahlie in a good way."

Johnson summated it in an e-mail to the Voice later saying that "no matter what struggles we come from "we" can still find success by being connected to our community. Each of our speakers showed that community is very important to staying healthy."