Strength in the Circle: Men get training to help them help others in Norway House Cree Nation

With hope in their hearts, a group of men from northern Manitoba has come to Winnipeg on a mission to help their community.

The Norway House Cree Nation group, known as Strength in the Circle, is a trauma-healing support group for Indigenous men. They are in Winnipeg this week learning crisis and employment skills needed back home.

"The violence is getting out of hand. The drugs is getting out of hand. And for us, I think we can reach out to them and talk to them," Leon Colon said on Thursday.

"For me, personally, I've been down that path … it's not the way to go … you can end up in bad places, takes you to a bad place and I don't want to see that for the youth back home."

The program was formed by executive director Jonathan Meikle, who grew up in Norway House.

Meikle, who has endured struggles with addiction, anxiety and depression, says he created Strength in the Circle after a life-changing event.

"Me and my friend got on a bus. An individual tried to provoke me with a knife. He went after somebody else. I ended up intervening — I disarmed and detained him. However, I was stabbed in the process," Meikle said.

He says he saw the violence as a cry for help.

"All I knew were the things I shared in common with him," Meikle said. "He was Indigenous. He was a man. He was a youth. He was exhibiting behaviours of violence. He had substance use issues." 

Meikle and the man who stabbed him became friends, and Strength in the Circle was born — men helping each other heal.

It's an organization built in response to the prevalence of untreated trauma in Indigenous communities that's often the result of historical and collective trauma that stems from discriminatory practices.

The group is also starting to bring more attention to the impact of the residential school system, Meikle says, including the symptoms of historical trauma that translate into addiction, incarceration and early death.

"Johnny [Meikle] got ahold of me and asked me if I was interested in this training," McKay said. "He was also looking for other guys to join. So I went out and looked for some people who had the same interests as I did." 

He says the main focus of the group is Norway House's youth.

"This training has shown me a lot, how to connect with people in a positive manner. We're taking suicide prevention program training, which is very helpful to us, because there is a lot stuff we did not know, that we know now."

Through recognizing and addressing historical trauma, Meikle hopes the men come away with tools to help their people.

"The vehicle to get to that place we want to be is to build up our supports every way we can … to inform all our policies and ways of operating in all our departments," he said.

"To me, that's what I think is going to get us to that place of collective healing."

Men get training to help them help others in Norway House Cree Nation

2 years ago

Duration 2:54

Members of a Norway House Cree Nation group, known as Strength in the Circle, are in Winnipeg this week learning crisis and employment skills needed back home.