Healing Happens Here: Decolonizing primary care through Indigenous land-based health programs in urban spaces with Marlee Poole from Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society

What can land-based healing practices look like in cities? How do they connect to systemic changes (including #LandBack) needed for Indigenous communities to heal and thrive? How has city planning, as part of colonial “nation building,” created health inequities by disconnecting urban Indigenous people from the rich histories and medicines of the land?

This webinar explores policy and systemic issues affecting the health and wellness of Indigenous people in cities, with a focus on “Vancouver” (unceded xʷməθkʷəy̓əm, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh, and səlilwətaɬ territories). Using the work of Vancouver Aboriginal Health Society — an Indigenous not-for-profit in the Downtown Eastside for over 30 years — as a guiding place, we will discuss how urban Indigenous approaches to primary care address “policy failures” rooted in colonialism, and how (re)connecting to land and culture can promote transformative change in ourselves, in cities, and in the health care system.