The Story of Healing with O-Pipon-Na-Piwin Cree Nation (OPCN)

Abstract

Introduction I went to OPCN for the first time in 2009 to do a household food security survey as a part of my research work at the University of Manitoba. The survey results revealed that OPCN had a high food insecurity; children were surviving on junk food because of limited access to a healthy diet. When I came to Canada a decade ago for graduate work, I came with a stereotypical "romantic" impression of North America, which was built from popular TV shows - beautiful houses with trimmed lawns, clean neighbourhoods, children making snowmen in winter, no slums, poverty or hunger, and abundant resources, which are distributed evenly to all, or at least better than my country. Since my father died because of a doctor's mistake, my mother used to avoid doctors and relied on herbal medicines if we were sick.