Project 467303

The Indigenous Healthy early Life Trajectories Initiative (I-HeLTI) is a novel, community-led partnership focused on strengths-based, multi-generational resilience research. Connecting early life stages with social and physical environments and human health, the 14 Nuu-chah-nulth Nations, the four Cree Nations of Maskwacis and the five Cree and Dene Nations of Wood Buffalo will investigate how Indigenous Knowledge, coupled with Western science, can improve our children's lives. The project is informed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada's report on the multi-generational traumatic experiences of residential school survivors. For more than 100 years, thousands of Indigenous children were forcibly removed from their homes and communities and stripped of their Indigenous identities, eradicating cultural, family and kinship structures. Yet our communities are resilient. We have survived. Even so, most research has failed to articulate Indigenous pathways for optimal health and wellness. Our I-HeLTI research will use traditional Indigenous Knowledge to inform and reclaim positive pathways for promoting and sustaining healthy child development, measuring the wellbeing of children and families over time, while also healing from traumas that manifest as chronic health conditions such as mental health and cardiometabolic problems, or non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Research on reducing the burden of NCDs is crucial to Nation Rebuilding. By engaging with Elders, community leaders, Knowledge Holders and researcher allies, we will meet our goals of understanding how social and biological processes and mechanisms along with community-led programs may be optimized for children's benefit in reducing NCDs. In the words of the late Alice Paul, Nuu-chah-nulth Elder: The highest law is to protect our offspring, because that is how we as a Nation of people shall survive. We will honour this teaching, and honour our children and communities, through this project.