Sixteen Yellowknife women will head out on the land this month, to heal the trauma they have experienced in their lives. Executive director of the Yellowknife Women’s Society Bree Denning is organizing two two-day camps which will bring vulnerable women from Yellowknife, including some who are homeless, to take part.
“The need is absolutely huge,” Denning says. “The women that we serve are among some of those who will benefit from it the most but there are a lot of women along the spectrum and men as well that will benefit from healing opportunities that take them out of the city and allow them to reconnect to the land.”
“It’s across the board in the north,” Denning adds. “With the impacts of colonization and residential school and the sixties scoop, etcetera. Trauma is widespread and if not personal trauma, then intergenerational trauma.”
Two groups of women will travel to Fort Smith to take part in the healing program led by Shannon Moroney. Despite being from the south, Denning says Moroney has worked with women in the Inuvialuit region and comes highly recommended from those who have taken part in the Inuvialuit camp.
The camps are a pilot program, funded by a $60,000 grant from the NWT On The Land Collaborative. Denning says the organization has also applied for the grant again this year, and hopes both the Women’s Society and other local organizations get involved in on the land healing work.
