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Thanks to funding from Indigenous Services Canada, via First Nations and Inuit Health Branch and in collaboration with the First Nations Health Managers Association, the Canadian Red Cross launched a Help Desk to support Indigenous community leaders prepare for and respond to COVID-19. Here is how the Help Desk made it possible to help one of these leaders.

“The primary goal of our work is to increase social connectedness,” explains Frank Cohn, director of DUDES Club, a British Columbia-based non-profit organization that promotes men’s health and wellness, particularly among Indigenous communities.
 

The First Nations Health and Wellness Colouring Book is bursting with life and love. It is a gathering of Manitoba First Nation artists invited to react to and create with the themes of health and wellness. In partnership with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs, the Canadian Red Cross produced the colouring book as part of a continuing conversation with First Nation communities to support health and wellness.

The Baker Lake Prenatal Nutrition Project has been supporting new mothers and mothers-to-be in the remote Inuit community of Nunavut for 25 years. When the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in the spring of 2020, prenatal and postnatal classes had to be put on hold, but the Project wanted to continue distributing food hampers.

Recognizing the increased need for mental health support during the pandemic, Art Not Shame successfully applied to the Government of Canada’s Emergency Community Support Fund administered by the Canadian Red Cross and launched “The Mural Project: Art in Hard Times” in the summer of 2020.

“How have you been taking care of yourselves?” Lisa Evanoff asks a group of students huddled around a Zoom call in the mostly Indigenous community of Inuvik, Northwest Territories. It’s a simple question, but one that not everybody is equipped to answer.

Bored and isolated, who hasn’t struggled with those feelings in the last nine months? And then a package arrives in your community. It’s filled with stress relief strategies, positive messages, and a fun-filled afternoon of creation and expression. The Canadian Red Cross really knows how to pack a box!

Chapados is doing a virtual walkthrough of the COVID-19 isolation centre she’s worked to set up for members of the five Nations that make up the Kee Tas Kee Now Tribal Council. On the other end of the line is the Canadian Red Cross. A two-person team made up of experts in emergency response and health. This is the Help Desk for Indigenous Leadership in action.