Auduzhe Mino Nesewinong Outreach
Grounded in the power of relationships and the truth of lived experiences, community-based care models centre people instead of disease symptoms or illness. This way of providing care involves sharing knowledge and resources, which can mean providing access to health care outside of clinical settings, sharing information about navigating existing health and social service infrastructures, providing access to resources beyond medication to support health and wellness. The value of Indigenous led community health and wellness programs is that they can offer care in a way that serves needs as defined by respective communities.
“The importance of this project is profound, in particular because it is a combination of service and research that is community-led. All systems are informed by the urban Indigenous community and designed specifically for that community – and the outreach and supports are based on Indigenous kinship systems of inclusion, care and self-determination,” Cheryllee Bourgeois, Exemption Métis Midwife at Seventh Generation Midwives Toronto
Our outreach workers assess and respond to urgent material and emotional support needs of our community (including food insecurity, shelter, clothing, transportation, and counselling support). With the support of our community-based Site Manager, Indigenous COVID-19 isolation site nurse practitioner, and in liaison with Toronto Public Health, two community outreach workers provide public health follow-up including contact tracing in a timely manner. This will include arrangements for COVID-19 testing at the Indigenous COVID-19 testing site or other testing facility; support in finding self-isolation space as required, and counselling on COVID-19 prevention, testing, and quarantine; testing referrals; support during isolation; gathering of testing and exposure information; and follow-up with contacts. Outreach workers also help community members access to unmet COVID-19 related and other health care needs. This will be done alongside community efforts to improve Indigenous community access to testing, isolation, and services.
Meet our Outreach Team!
Brianna Pitawanakwat
Aaniin/Sago everyone! My name is Brianna Olson Pitawanakwat, also Shining Dancing Star Woman, a member of Wiikwemkoong Unceded First Nation and the Reindeer Clan. I love spending time doing organizing, art and being on the Land with my Fiancé Nanook and our dog Kulu.
I am so excited to share with you all my role as an outreach worker here at the Auduzhe mino Nesewinong Site as we embark on this New Year. In addition to being outreach at the first Indigenous Covid Testing Site in Toronto, I am also a Community Birthworker, Professor, Multimedia artist and Jingle Dress dancer. It was through my role as a Birthworker with Seventh Generation Midwives that I became involved with this amazing place. Its been an honor to support the Urban Indigenous community here in Toronto with culturally safer covid19 testing, research, education and prevention through Auduzhe Mino Nesewinong.
One of the most exciting parts of my role was being mentored to begin this work by the Navajo Nation. It was the Navajo Nation who responded to and managed one of the largest covid19 outbreaks on Turtle Island, and we are eternally grateful for their guidance.
I shared a photo of myself in my Jingle Dress, as this healing dance came to the Anishinaabek Nation during the Spanish Flu pandemic, an experience similar to the one we find ourselves in now that our ancestors faced. I look forward to continuing to serve the Community as we navigate this pandemic.
I might even run into you in my outreach role or when I am screening at the testing site. Miigwech & Kawabmin/Thank you & See you soon!
I can be reached by email at generations@sgmt.ca or by calling 416-530-7468
