Ashukin: The Bridge Between Communities
A Program that Promotes Collaboration Between McGill Nursing Students and Indigenous Communities Across Quebec
by Mélanie Bédard
“Think global, act local”. These words have been at the forefront of the global health field in recent years. This phrase successfully captures the reality that global health could not be a reality without local initiatives.
Global and Indigenous Health Nursing (GAIHN), within the Ingram School of Nursing at McGill, firmly exemplify this statement. Think global, act local is at the very top of their list of values and beliefs, along with the belief in the importance of raising awareness and understanding of diverse cultures and perspectives. Another commitment listed on their website is to “foster global and Indigenous collaborations for the enrichment of academic programs”. In order to follow up on these commitments, GAIHN offers several opportunities for its students to learn about Indigenous practices.
“My interest in Indigenous health actually started when I entered McGill, “ explains Léa Poulin-Nadeau, a third-year nursing student at McGill. “We were exposed in our training to this topic, and there were also different opportunities in the [Ingram] School of Nursing such as the Blanket Exercise. Clinical rotations were offered to us in order to learn more about Indigenous communities,” explains Léa. The Blanket Exercise she is referring to is the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, a workshop developed with the intention of sharing the Canadian story from an Indigenous perspective.
GAIHN offers other initiatives with the intention of ensuring every nursing student has an understanding of the impacts of colonization and that they will eventually bring this knowledge into their practice. One such program is the Ashukin program. The word Ashukin comes from the Naskapi Nation, an Indigenous community located in current-day Northern Quebec and Labrador, that means “bridge”. This word was chosen intentionally to reflect the main goals of the program: to establish a partnership between nursing students and Indigenous communities around Quebec and to allow nursing students to work and collaborate with these communities. This program, developed by GAIHN’s co-chairs, Professor Francoise Filion and Professor Jodi Tuck, along with Glenda Sandy, GAIHN’s Indigenous Nurse advisor, has impacts on the professional development of nursing students, and on the health of Indigenous communities.
Students who choose to participate in the program are assigned to an Indigenous community with which they will collaborate for the duration of the term. “We were discussing every week with [a] resource person living in the community. This person really helped us to identify the needs of the people living in the community, and it also gave the tone to our project,” explains Poulin-Nadeau, who is currently completing the Ashukin program.
Nursing students during their trip to Wemotaci. From left to right: Marrah Jospeh, Léa Poulin-Nadeau, Sarah Zidle, Mathilde Parent & Alyssa Bartucci.
Léa and her group are collaborating with the Atikamekw community in Wemotaci, located in northern Quebec, about a 6-hour drive north of Montreal. Their group developed a project targeting healthy lifestyle habits among high school students in the community. “The topics that we presented to the students were really targeting the needs of the community and the goal was to make some kind of contribution to the health and health education of the students,” Poulin-Nadeau explains.
Depending on the distance, students are able to visit the communities regularly, or in Léa’s case, at only one point during the semester. Léa and her group stayed with the Atikamekw community for three days, on one of which they presented their final project to the community. “I think we presented the project 6 times in total,” Léa explained when outlining the details of her stay in the community. “It was short, like a short immersion, but I feel that the program really allowed us to live a full experience, I’m just really grateful.”
When asked about the highlights of the program, she said it was “definitely going into the community and finally presenting the project. We were so excited to present the project and finally meet all those wonderful people that we worked with for so many weeks. It was like the realization of the whole thing.”
A goal of the Ashukin program is to enhance the students’ cultural competency and cultural safety. Providing culturally sensitive care is a crucial component of healthcare that is more often than not disregarded. “We don’t just want to create the relationship with the Indigenous community and the urban community. There is a lot of stigma and I think [the goal] is really to just open people’s eyes on what is the reality in the reserves and also in Indigenous communities,” says Poulin-Nadeau, “I feel that this experience taught me a lot about how to deliver care considering the culture or the trauma of some people, I think that my practice will definitely benefit from it in the future.”
This program is quite new to McGill - the first cohort of students completed the Ashukin program in 2018. A long-term goal of the program is to foster a mentorship relationship and inspire members of the Indigenous communities to consider nursing as a career path. They also aim to help communities connect with future healthcare workers and potentially recruit new nurses to work in their communities.
The Ashukin program is a promising step within the Ingram School of Nursing toward promoting collaboration between future healthcare workers and Indigenous communities. However, this is just one small step in McGill's commitment to Truth and Reconciliation at the university. If McGill is serious about said commitments, many other faculties should follow their lead.
The Ashukin program is offered to all students who are eligible to enroll in NURI 432. Application forms are automatically sent by Professor Filion upon registration.
Thank you to Léa Poulin-Nadeau for taking the time to speak with me about her experience in the Ashukin program.