Shxw’éyelh: Stories of Health and Healing

Shxw’éyelh: Stories of Health and Healing was produced by the Reporting in Indigenous Communities (RIIC) class, which focuses exclusively on Indigenous news stories. For a full term, first and second-year students are introduced to First Nations ethics, cultures, histories, and politics through their immersion into several different Indigenous communities in B.C.’s Lower Mainland. Their research ultimately leads to a series of online news stories in print, audio, and video.

Launched in 2012, RIIC is the only journalism course of its kind in Canada. Community partners include the Squamish Nation, Tsleil-Waututh First Nation, Tsawwassen First Nation, Sto:lo Nation, Sto:lo Tribal Council and the Metro Vancouver Aboriginal Executive Council. In addition to welcoming students into their communities to cover news stories, community advisers help shape the direction of the course and provide guest lecturers.

The inaugural RIIC class tackled the subject of Indigenous health, in particular how B.C. First Nations communities are taking steps to heal themselves and one another. Story topics ranged from mobile diabetes testing clinic to suicide intervention teams to holistic sentencing. The students’ reporting was not only featured on the website, but in a week-long CBC Radio series that aired across the province and in a one-hour episode of the national CBC Radio program, The Story From Here.

Adjunct professor and award-winning CBC-TV reporter Duncan McCue teaches the course. Duncan is Anishinaabe, from the Chippewas of Georgina Island First Nation, and creator of an online resource for journalists who cover Indigenous communities, www.riic.ca.

• Uprooting diabetes: Riceroot grows again
• Ancestral language promotes healing for Tsleil-Waututh Nation
• Crisis team seeks to end suicide in Sto:lo communities
• Breaking the silence of sexual abuse