I am a Kind Man program coming

A program geared at teaching Aboriginal men to live their lives without violence against women gets set to start in Thunder Bay in September.
Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin is a community reintegration project that one worker describes as teaching Aboriginal men to “live like Aboriginal men.”
Martin White, a Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin worker who runs the program out of the Thunder Bay Indian Friendship Center, said he works with Aboriginal men who are abusive to their spouse by reintroducing them to the traditional teachings and practices of Aboriginal people.
“The program incorporates the seven Grandfather teachings and how they relate to living as Aboriginal men. Those teachings do not teach a man how to live violently,” White said.
‘Kizhaay Anishinaabe niin’ means, ‘I am a kind man’ in Ojibwe.
A pamphlet from Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin states that the goal of the program is “to engage the men and boys of Aboriginal communities to speak out against all forms of violence and abuse towards Aboriginal women.”
White expressed how those kinds of violent behaviours were brought into the Aboriginal culture through “contact” – a word the Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin brochure describes as “colonization.”
In the first week of the program, White touches up on some of the history of Aboriginal people and the kinds of behaviours that were adopted after contact.
“I talk about things like how we learned to take tobacco the wrong way, how we learned to be abusive to our wives and kids. We talk about residential school. I talk a lot to them (the program participants) about how they drink alcohol and get violent – I ask what part of that is Aboriginal?” White explained.
For the most part, the program’s participants are court-ordered to be there. The pamphlet describes the project being aimed at “an Aboriginal man who is being or has been recently released from incarceration and is returning to the community.”
It is also geared for Aboriginal men who wish to join the program voluntarily.
When a person is referred to – or volunteers to – enroll into the program, White said he conducts a quick phone intake and then asks the enrollees to come by the Thunder Bay Indian Friendship Center for another meeting. “It takes about an hour to ask questions and get consent forms signed,” White explained.
“I register about 25 individuals,” White said. “We are packed at our facility, I think sometimes that’s why a lot of the men drop out of the program. It’s too big of a group. Out of 25 members, we graduate about 10 or 12.”
“Sometimes we get people, for instance, who say they are 100 per cent Catholic. I tell them to look at being Catholic and how it mirrors Aboriginal teachings. The teachings have a common root. The Bible doesn’t say to hurt your children, or to consume alcohol and then hurt your wife,” White said. “I tell them to use the Grandfather teachings, they were given to us for free.”
The first goal of the program is “to provide education and support for Aboriginal men and boys to address issues of violence against Aboriginal women.”
“You can’t change the past, so you have to move forward. You have to make yourself better than it (the past),” White said of people who have been abusive towards their partners. “If you were abusive yesterday, don’t be abusive today. Move forward.”
Much more information including current Kizhaay Anishinaabe Niin sites in Ontario, as well as other helpful resources, can be accessed at www.iamakindman.ca or by calling 1-800-772-9291.