When Mona Minnabarriet moved to Calgary, her plans to study and become a paralegal were far from what happened next.
"I thought I was just growing up and doing regular kid things, but in the end it became my life," said Mona Minnabarriet, who ended up living on the streets of Calgary.
With support from her family, Minnabarriet was recounting her story of substance abuse and recovery at the first Calling our People Home event in Williams Lake. The event invited the community to visit various booths in Boitanio Park on Thursday, June 19 to learn about the toxic drug crisis and how they can help or find help here in Williams Lake.
Along with the drumming and singing which flowed from the park's stage throughout the day, people were also encouraged to share their own stories if they wanted to.
"I had no idea who I was and what I was doing," Minnabarriet recalled from the 11 years she spent on the streets, struggling with an addiction to heroine, facing racism and believing she was beyond help.
Today, she said she is grateful to be alive and to have rejoined her community.
"It's a pillar of strength," said Minnabarriet's aunt Marilyn Porter as she spoke of the joy of seeing her niece walk through their community once again.
"She's a strong example of when you put the work in and work at it everyday," Porter said.
Minnabarriet went through six months of treatment and has been sober for over a year.
"Be the person that you're meant to be," she said, indicating this was key to her journey towards recovery.
These last words Minnabarriet shared on stage reflects the intentions which first propelled the event into being. It first began in Kamloops when the event's visionary, Danny Kennedy, was on the streets looking for members of his community of St'uxwtéws (Bonaparte First Nation) to help them find work.
"It's a grassroots movement that we came up with from the desire to want to help those people that are suffering on the streets - it broke our hearts, and we couldn't do enough to help them," he said.
Kennedy is the Indigenous health and wellness coordinator with St'uxwtéws, and his experiences on the job inspired him to put together an event which encourages people to reconnect with their community and the services which will help bring them home.
"There's so many people that are suffering out here, and that's a fight that we're losing when we're doing it by ourselves," Kennedy said. "We just wanted to come out and show those people that are living in a toxic drug crisis and without homes that they're loved, they're valued, they're seen, they're wanted and they're needed."
Read more: Addictions, homelessness supports focus of Williams Lake event
Calling our People Home was held in Kamloops for its first two years, but came to Williams Lake this year where there is also a real need.
"It's time that people do come together, and this is a representation of that," said Angela Clark, a youth worker with St'uxwtéws and the co-founder of Calling our People Home. "It just fills our hearts with joy to see so many people come out that are passionate about this, and it's time."
Clark said the event is geared towards Indigenous people, but is open to anyone living without a home or living in addiction, those with loved ones who are struggling and others who want to get informed or learn how to help.
"The toxic drug crisis knows no borders," Clark said.
She did however point to statistics which show that 83 per cent of people living without a home are First Nations, and 72 per cent of those people have attended residential school or are indirectly impacted by them through intergenerational trauma.
"That's important to know because we hear a lot of people say that 'Indigenous people should get over the trauma of residential school'," Clark said. "And so I speak to that, and I say come down and...educate yourself on that because intergenerational trauma, it does not go away. It changes, and so the grandchildren, they have a different impact than the ones that were directly impacted, but it's just as powerful."
Watch: Toxic drug crisis awareness and support event in Williams Lake
Calling our People Home brings together traditional medicines and western ways of healing to help people struggling with homelessness and addition find the supports they need.
"Instead of them coming to us...we go to there, to where they belong and where they're part of," said Kukpi7 (Chief) Frank Antoine of St'uxwtéws who visited the event in Williams Lake. "At the end of the day, this is where they hang out, they sit here all day...just looking for a conversation, and sometimes that's all they need is that conversation."
Antoine said the purpose of the event, which was run through the band's social department and which came together through the support and participation of local agencies and First Nations, holds the same emphasis as the Every Child Matters movement, which is to help everybody.
For Indigenous people, Antoine said the land, water, people and animals are a point of reference for many, making it an essential part of one's recovery journey.
"Most of the Indigenous people that do end up on the streets come from little communities that are rural communities and they feel there's nothing there," Antoine said as drummers began to play behind him from the Boitanio Park stage. "When any Indigenous person hears this drum, for example, they miss home, they know where they come from and they need to go back and find themselves there through the culture, through the families that they grew up with and friends."
Calling our People Home ran from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. in Williams Lake, where local nations and service providers such as Xatśūll First Nation, Denisiqi Services Society and Knucwentwecw Society were set up with booths to connect with and support the community.
Esk'etemc's Recovery House Letwilc Ren Semec Centre (Healing our Spirit), was also present, as well as Rae-Lyn Betts, the director of family services for Stswecem’c Xget’tem First Nation (Canoe Creek and Dog Creek).
All around there were food, treats and clothes, and Missy Chenier with S.A.G.E. Trainers was providing workshops on how to administer naloxone which can temporarily reverse the effects of an overdose.
