Dr. Cindy Blackstock has done many things for children’s rights. Last Wednesday, it was the kids’ chance to thank her.
The defender of children in care was back on Gitxsan territory June 20 to visit Majagaleehl Gali Aks school in Hazelton. She was asked what she felt after the kids sang and danced for her, and received a new Gitxsan name and blanket from the elders.
“Absolute joy. This morning when I came here and I was driving from Smithers to Hazelton, all these memories of when I was a little kid started flooding back,” said Blackstock.
“I remember back then that life was really hard for First Nations people; the level of discrimination was so deep. And then to drive into the school and one of the first things I see is the Gitxsan language up on the board, and I’m greeted by these children who are just so full of joy, and then I see them singing songs in front of the elders and performing the dances, and I know everything is going to be OK.”
My awesome visit to Gitksan territory today spending time with Elders, family and planting a heart garden with the kids:) pic.twitter.com/JVQABoro5T
— Cindy Blackstock (@cblackst) June 21, 2018
She said the job of adults is to make the job a little bit easier to do the things Majagaleehl Gali Aks and others already were.
“When I grew up in the 1960s in the bush, I didn’t learn of lot of the culture and language,” she said.
Blackstock was born in Burns Lake before living all over northern B.C. She is now a professor for the School of Social Work at McGill University and executive director of First Nations Child & Family Caring Society of Canada.
“I really think that these kids can now teach people like me, so that when we walk into these spaces we’re taught the proper protocol, that we’re taught the proper language.”
She is best known for her fight against the federal government to recognize under funding of child welfare for First Nations and on reserves. After years of fighting in the courts, the Canadian Human Rights Commission agreed First Nations children in care were under funded and the federal government need to fix the problem.
She is continuing the effort to turn a ruling into reality, which makes sense for someone whose new name means “One who guards the children” in English.
She was also thankful for the teaching of the elders who have held onto that culture through darker periods of history for the future.
“Kids are truly the embodiment of love. I look around the world at all the chaos and the mess the adults are creating, and then I just think how children across every diversity love each other, play with each other, eat together, ensure that each other’s taken care of,” she said.
“And I think if kids ran the world even the bugs would be looked after.”
