Support workers hired to find N.S. families to testify at MMIWG inquiry
3 community outreach specialists will help families understand what's involved in testifying
Three community support workers — all Indigenous women — have been hired to connect Nova Scotian families with the federal commission on missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls.
The community outreach specialists were hired earlier this summer under a $790,000 federal program that runs until March 30, 2019.
They are visiting the province's 13 bands to tell families what is involved in testifying — publicly or in private — when the commission holds hearings in Nova Scotia on Oct. 30.
"I am surprised how many are coming forward and how many families are being affected," said community support co-ordinator Marie Sack. "It doesn't just affect the immediate family. There is extended family as well."
The other two support workers are Shirley Morris and Charmaine Maloney.
They were introduced at news conference Thursday at Sipekne'katik First Nation in central Nova Scotia. Morris and Sack have received training on how to discuss mental health, addictions and residential school issues.
Maloney is one of 27 Indigenous women — the entire class was female — who graduated from the Mi'kmaq and Maliseet bachelor of social work program in New Brunswick this spring.
Nova Scotia's Department of Justice is administering the support on behalf of Ottawa through its victim services division.
'One murder is one murder too many'
It is unclear how many families in Nova Scotia will come forward to the commission and how many Indigenous women have been murdered or gone missing in Nova Scotia.
One of those women was Tanya Brooks of Millbrook. Her murder eight years ago in Halifax remains unsolved.
Her sister Vanessa Brooks says supports like this were needed long ago for families like hers.
"One murder is one murder too many, and murder doesn't know race," Brooks said. "Why it is hitting our race at the rapid speed it is, I don't know. But that is why we need this inquiry. We need to know why our numbers are climbing, why our girls are going missing and why they are being murdered.
"Everybody needs to start paying attention. This is not acceptable as Canadians."
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