Kiera Dawn Kolson
Indigenous Rights - Canada (North America)
Kiera Dawn Kolson is deeply shocked each time she encounters children, sometimes as young as seven-years-old, consuming alcohol. As a young Aboriginal girl from Canada’s Northwest Territories, she believes that substance abuse is responsible for the rising tide of youth crime, poor health and the increasing number of teens turning to prostitution in her community. Kiera became so concerned by the effects of alcohol on her community that she teamed up with other youths to form a chapter of “Ala-Teen”, a group offering counselling and support for teens affected by alcoholism.
Work like Kiera’s is desperately needed in Canada’s Aboriginal communities, with 50% of Aboriginal people believing that alcohol abuse is a serious problem in their communities. The problem is particularly urgent in communities where Foetal Alcohol Syndrome is an emerging health issue. Kiera plans to develop a series of teen videos and programs encouraging young Aboriginals to embrace their culture instead of turning to drugs and alcohol.
“Alcohol and drugs are replacing our culture,” she says. “I want youths to develop positive alternative lifestyles based on a resurgence of pride in their Aboriginal culture”.
Action Update, January 2006:
"I am currently working on establishing youth support programs in every community across the NWT, also I will be working with the different communities to establish culture information centers within every community. By doing this I am hoping to eliminate suicide, substance abuse, lack of confidance within our youth, and help them to regain their self-esteem. Through the culture information centers we will be bridging the generation gaps and our youth will be learning who they are as far as their culture goes and hopefully we will increase the amount of people who speak their language.
I have sang, and spoke at the dreamcatchers aboriginal youth conference in Edmonton, where I spoke to youth on being proud of who they are and on the importance of keeping a balenced lifestyle to keep their medicine wheels in order. I sang and spoke at the earthling(s) festival in Vancouver I spoke on climate change in the north and sang songs of indiginous rights. I sang at the Knowing your spirits conference in Edmonton I was supposed to put on a workshop there too but that didnt happen due to other reasons. I attended a healing gathering in Saddle Lake which gave me an idea to work on this Denendeh Human Rights Healing Gathering which I am putting on here in Yellowknife in June of this year and all people are invited it will be a wonderful event. I spoke at the Native Womens Association of the NWT's AGM and was elected in as their youth representative on their national board, I also spoke at an elders conference on the importance of knowing who we are so that we can know where we are going, and on the importance of todays generation to re-connect with our elders because once their gone there is no coming back.
One of the most important things I've learnt is that we have a lot of potential that just needs to be discovered. A lot of our youth are very talented and by incuding their culture they can only grow stronger, so never give up."
