The Reality of our Future Generations - A call to action

As many of you know there is a massive political movement happening on Six Nations, the key line being “For our ‘future generations’”. In my opinion, this ideology and concept has almost lost its meaning in the crossfire of discussions being held. Don’t get me wrong I love that there is discussions going on, but I pose a serious statement: any land or financial compensation that is gotten will go to waste unless there is a social movement equal to that of the political one.

For example, take a look at our past:

A young boy is called into the principal’s office only to find that his sister is there, he is then forced to have sex with her while the principal watches and masturbates.

A young boy is placed in solitary confinement for attempting to escape.

A young boy dies and his body is buried, his parents are not notified.

These are all real events that occurred in residential schools; possibly a similar event occurred to a relative of yours. All of the children have one thing in common: they were prohibited to practice their ceremonies. They were punished for speaking the language. If the children did not experience sexual, emotional, or physical abuse first hand, then they witnessed it.

Now, these are our parents and grandparents. And therein lies the problem: would you be able to raise your children in a healthy productive manner if you were one of these students?

Our people are hurting weather you recognize it or not. The works of the government has affected you on an every day, social, and personal level. As a result, our community is broken, lost and directionless. It's not our fault. However, we are to blame if we allow this cycle to continue.

Although we are one of the most economically stable aboriginal communities in Canada, we are faced with a significant amount of other problems. Everybody who’s ever been out knows how intense drugs and specifically coke is raging throughout our community. We all hit the bottle more than we should. We all have trouble with how to cope. We all have been in or witnessed an extremely unhealthy partner relationship. We all have some degree of self esteem issues. We have all experienced sum form of discomfort and discontent with the education system. We all want to become more knowledgeable in our traditional ways.

This is the current reality of our future generations right now.

This is what we are fighting against.

And no matter how much money we get from these negotiations, it will mean nothing to our People, because to me, the answer to our healing lies in the Youth. This is where the tarnish of our spirit was created and this is were it needs to be cleaned. We need a place in which we can permit our children to grow as an individual so we are able to grow as a community. Once we begin to raise our children right we will prosper and begin to meet our full potential. It will take a lot of work but once the ball is rolling it'll get easier as it picks up speed.

So how do we do this? Well there is already an event that is taking place, which seeks to fulfill this void for the Youth – the Six Nations Youth Rally that is being planned for July 11-13 at Cheifswood Park. Here we are looking to finally start healing these wounds and build our community through the Youth. Hopefully, together we can inspire, involve and empower ourselves and all the other Youth in the Community. We can unify. Not only through discussions and ceremony, but through action.

So, you we really believe in the Future Generations, then I challenge you to come to the Six Nations Youth Rally to support, teach and most importantly listen to your future generation.

Whether you’re a Youth, Elder, Mohawk, Cayuga, Longhouse, Christian or whatever, let's all stand up together and put a face to the future generations our leaders speak so much of and finally DO SOMETHING!

I will see you all there.

Tahnee Wilson
Six Nations Youth
Delegation of Six Nations Youth