How Idle No More changed Indigenous elder's life

The first time Geraldine Shingoose was asked to say a prayer as an elder, she was nervous.  "I was kind of taken aback. 'I'm too young'," she recalls thinking. "But I didn't tell him that. He offered me tobacco and I agreed." 

Shingoose doesn't remember the exact date of the event, but she knows it was Niigaan Sinclair, a University of Manitoba Assistant Professor and Winnipeg Free Press columnist, who asked her to speak, and that it happened around the time that the Idle No More movement was inspiring her.

"People of Turtle Island just woke up, and I was one of them." says Shingoose. She points to that time in Winnipeg as an important transformation for her. " I was given all those teachings in the past but I'd never used them. I didn't share them." 

Things are different now. Shingoose is better known in the community as 'Gramma' than by her real name.  She is called upon to say prayers or perform ceremonies by governments, universities, grassroots organizations and activists.  The residential school survivor has shared her story with thousands of students in our school systems. 

"She's always there," says Niigaan Sinclair. "She's like the grandmother for all of us in the city that do activism and work. She's at every gathering and (...) she's always there and whether you need a kind word or an encouraging word or sometimes a bit of a talking to." 

Gramma Shingoose learned the teachings that the community finds so valuable from her father, Henry Shingoose, when she was an adult. 

She would have learned them earlier, but she was taken from her home and her loving traditional family when she was just five years old to Muskowekwan residential school.  She suffered sexual, physical and spiritual abuse in residential school, including hearing loss from being violently hit in the head, repeatedly.

In this episode you'll hear Gramma Shingoose tell her life story, and how for her, speaking out and being there for her community is not a choice,it's a calling. 

But it takes a toll. 

"I go out and I educate and make people aware of my true history," says Shingoose.  "But I'm getting really tired of that.  I think as a responsible person in our society, you need to go and take that responsibility and go learn go learn on your own." 

Just as she was inspired by the Idle No More movement, Gramma Shingoose continues to be inspired and see hope in the young people around her.

"I'm just a grandma trying to bring change," says Shingoose.  "There's gonna be some good changes coming. When younger one's become old like me they're gonna be so vibrant. They're going to let go of that trauma. It's going to be more rebuilding of spirit. Rebuilding of heart and love for all people." 

 I hope she's right because that's a Winnipeg I want to live in.