The Northwest Metis Council hosted its 2nd annual “Empower Her” event in Dauphin this weekend.
Vice President Frances Chartrand tells CKDM the event — held on Saturday at the Metis Community Centre — is all about making Indigenous women feel stronger and safer.
She says the event features various presentations to enlighten and educate youth and Métis women that are leaving their smaller communities to pursue education in bigger cities.
Chartrand explains that measures were taken to ensure the event followed public health guidelines, including a sanitization team, and also providing masks to attendees.
“The majority of our presenters are Métis or Indigenous. We’re trying to focus on our survivors that went through the system, and how they were able to overcome the obstacles of being a Métis or Indigenous woman coming from a small community,” says Chartrand.
One of the presenters in attendance was NDP MLA for St. Johns, Nahanni Fontaine.
Fontaine discussed the topics of surviving sexual abuse, and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
“Yes, some things maybe on the surface look like they’re getting better. But for me, my default is when women and girls can walk the streets safe to go to school, drop their kids off, to go to work — and we’re not there yet,” says Fontaine.
“To me it’s unacceptable that there are still Indigenous women and girls that go missing or murdered. It’s unacceptable.”
Data from the Government of Canada shows that between 1980 and 2012, Indigenous women made up 16 percent of all women murdered in Canada, despite making up only 4 per cent of Canada’s female population.
