In Canada’s aboriginal communities, the cycle of interpersonal abuse has been a difficult problem to address. Generations subjected to isolation, poverty, residential schools, and other means of breaking down traditional lifestyles have resulted in high rates of domestic violence and sexual abuse. While outsiders raise their eyebrows at the statistics, those within the community express little shock.

From its launch in 1997, the Canadian Red Cross’s Walking the Prevention Circle course has addressed the factors which spawn violence, providing information for community leaders on how to recognize and prevent it, especially when youth are involved. According to the Red Cross’s website, the course “acknowledges the wholeness, history, light, darkness, challenges, and potential of First Nations, Métis, and Inuit peoples and communities.” Offered by organizations recognized by the Red Cross as RespectED Training Partners, the course is offered in formats ranging from 6 to 18 hours in length.

“Once we name and reclaim the past, we can begin to move forward and find solutions that can heal our communities.”

“Physical and sexual abuse are not traditionally acceptable in our culture, so there’s a huge disconnection between what was, traditionally, and what is the reality today,” Shelley Cardinal, aboriginal advisor to the Red Cross, noted in a 2003 interview. “Understanding how we got to that place is critical to changing that reality.”

Key to the course is allowing participants to remove the shame regarding violence, through group discussion, to foster prevention strategies. “We talk about how we might re-establish trust, what change might look like, how forgiveness can be achieved,” Cardinal observed. “Once we name and reclaim the past, we can begin to move forward and find solutions that can heal our communities.”