The Sixties Scoop – videos of speakers

The Sixties Scoop was a period of Canadian child welfare policy during which an estimated 16,000 Indigenous children were removed from their homes and adopted into non-Indigenous homes.

 

Angela Ashawasegai

is an Ojibway a member of Henvey Inlet First Nations. She is a writer, poet, mental health advocate and is now entering the realm of motivational speaking. She is currently finishing up her first non-fiction book, a compelling and riveting Memoir of her 60’s scoop adoption experience. Her story reveals one the most horrific unreported cases of child abuse in Canadian history. She is a survivor of mental illness. She has defied all the odds against her. She has overcome obstacles of homelessness, depression, suicide risk, the stigma of mental illness, self-doubt and now she has risen up like a phoenix out of the ashes. Her website is: http://nativeangelvoice.wordpress.com

 

Elder Joanne Dallaire

… currently sits as the Elder on Ryerson’s Aboriginal Education Council, works with various Aboriginal agencies in Toronto and the National Capital region and is a visiting Elder at Kumik and the Dodem Kanonsha. Joanne has made extraordinary contributions in the areas of counselling, advising and educating on Aboriginal concerns and empowering and capacity building within the Aboriginal community and non-Aboriginal community at large. She had dedicated her career to serving the Aboriginal community and advocating for change in terms of broader societal relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people.

 

Neal Shannacappo

Oshkabay’wis was born into the Saulteaux people in the winter, just before spring. Since then he has been many things: kidnapped, lost and found, a swimmer, a student, lost and found again, a reader of books and myths and legends of all peoples, a student of life and traveler of the world, lost inside of prison only to finally find his own self, laying the path to finding his people once more and all over again. Oshkabay’wis is that which endures and in along his journey he’s transformed himself into an artist, a poet, a writer, a film maker, a friend, an activist and recently a Social Service Worker. Above all else he is and always will be a helper. He walks through life with a giant wolf who is his guide and companion. https://www.facebook.com/Navriss