About — Indigenous Health Movement

About Us

Background

The Indigenous Health Movement (IHM) is a student club based out of McMaster University. Founded in 2016 as the annual Indigenous Health Conference (IHC), the club was expanded to the Indigenous Health Movement as a way to broaden engagement with Indigenous Health and Wellbeing outside of an isolated conference setting. The IHM conference is still an integral aspect of club activities, and has covered topics such as Health Equity and climate change, Pandemic Preparedness in Indigenous communities, and Research in the field of Indigenous Health. Find more information about the 2024 conference here.

Other club activities include Learning Circles, which are workshops facilitated by speakers who share knowledge in their respective fields. These workshops have included Beading workshops, Cooking Sessions with Elder Kathy Knott, and Birch Bark Basket making. IHM also seeks to partner with and advocate for community based organizations such as the Hamilton Native Women’s Centre.

Vision

IHM aims to change narratives about Indigenous Health and Wellbeing through community centered, student-led activities that engage with Indigenous Knowledge, narratives in Health, and learnings from both Traditional and Western medical practice.

Mission

IHM seeks to be an active student group that advocates for interconnected Indigenous Health and wellbeing across all contexts. IHM is committed to uplifting and prioritizing the agency of communities and speakers we work with. We want to continue putting community at the center of our work to ensure we engage together in a good way that supports holistic conceptualizations of Indigenous wellbeing and community health.

Importance of Narratives

IHM strives to build awareness about the inequities in healthcare that exist for Indigenous peoples, and to advocate for their equitable access and appropriate care. By changing the narrative of what Indigenous Health is and can be, and centering the experiences and knowledge of Indigenous Peoples, we seek to support Indigenous Health initiatives and empower youth to become agents of change.

Life Long Learning

There is a common misnomer that through the necessary training and tests you can be “competent” in a culture. However, learning is a continuous process and we can never perfectly master an individual’s history, heritage, and values, especially when considering the diverse and varying experience of Indigenous Groups, Nations, and Individuals. IHM seeks to highlight how we are all life-long learners, and when working in the area of health, we should strive to practice cultural humility rather than just cultural competency.

Nothing about Us without Us

Indigenous sovereignty, agency, and self-determination is key to addressing and solving problems that affect Indigenous People and exist in the field of Indigenous Health. Working “with” instead of “on” is a key aspect of relationship building and reconciliation that IHM seeks to embody. By centering the experiences of Indigenous People, and highlighting the importance of integrating Indigenous ways of knowing into current health systems, IHM seeks to aid in facilitating meaningful change in Indigenous Health.

Two Eyed Seeing

For the health needs of diverse populations to be met, there must be greater recognition and understanding of differing perspectives surrounding Health and Wellbeing. In the words of Elder Albert Marshall, there are multiple truths, and it is important to not only identify individual truths but to see how they intertwine and ultimately co-exist together. IHM seeks to practice and embody Two Eyed Seeing by acknowledging and considering wholistic Indigenous teachings and practices as well as Western biomedical conceptualizations of Health.