Community Event - Belleville - IMA Fundraiser - KAIROS Blanket Exercise
The Indigenous Medical Alliance and True North Aid teams are inviting you to join us for an evening of education and reconciliation as we try to raise funds for the transportation of medical supplies and equipment to the communities of Keewaytinook Okimakanak. Medical supplies include wheelchairs, walkers, wound care and bathroom supplies. With the supplies, we are also sending qualified medical professionals to provide services that are not available to these communities.
The blanket exercise provides education about the history of Indigenous peoples in Canada with the hopes of providing an understanding, and perhaps a motive for change, for the issues they face today. About the Exercise: The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is an interactive learning experience that teaches the Indigenous rights history we’re rarely taught. Developed in response to the 1996 Report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples—which recommended education on Canadian-Indigenous history as one of the key steps to reconciliation, the Blanket Exercise covers over 500 years of history in a one and a half hour participatory workshop.Blanket Exercise participants take on the roles of Indigenous peoples in Canada. Standing on blankets that represent the land, they walk through pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance. They are directed by facilitators representing a narrator (or narrators) and the European colonizers. Participants are drawn into the experience by reading scrolls and carrying cards which ultimately determine their outcomes. By engaging on an emotional and intellectual level, the Blanket Exercise effectively educates and increases empathy. Ideally, the exercise is followed by a debriefing session in which participants have the opportunity to discuss the experience as a group. This often takes the form of a talking circle.