Aboriginal Health Initiative Program (AHIP)
What is the Aboriginal Health Initiative Program?
The Aboriginal Health Initiative Program (AHIP) was launched in 2002 as a regional community based funding program to support and encourage Aboriginal communities to identify health promotion projects that are culturally meaningful to them. Successful projects include mechanisms to gather community input and ways to measure project outcomes. AHIP initiatives help achieve the goals outlined in the Aboriginal Health and Wellness Plan 2008-2011.
Upcoming Training Opportunities
At anytime VCH Employees can register for the Indigenous Cultural Competency Training (Core ICC Health) at the following link: www.culturalcompetency.ca/training. The course is free to all VCH employees and can be completed online in 8 hours over an 8 week period.
Health Promotion Projects
AHIP Supports Aboriginal communities to provide locally responsive health promotion projects in the following 5 broad streams:
- Mental Wellness and Self-Esteem: refers to a person’s level of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual balance, feelings of well being
and ability to respond in positive ways when faced with life’s
situations and challenges; ability to have meaningful relationships with
family and feel good about oneself in those relationships. Having good
Mental Wellness and Self-Esteem can help prevent addictions.
- Chronic or Infectious Disease: are illnesses that last for a long time
with symptoms that can change over time and may have times of
severe illness. Some examples are cancer, arthritis, diabetes, asthma,
hypertension, lupus, emphysema. Infectious diseases
are caused by a germ (virus or bacteria) that can be passed from
person to person and makes people sick. Some Infectious Diseases
are also chronic, such as AIDS/HIV and hepatitis.
- Access to Health Care Services: work with VCH, your community and other agencies to develop innovative and interactive ways to access health services.
- Early Childhood: is a time of physical, emotional, intellectual and spiritual growth in Aboriginal children aged 0 to 6 years old. Some examples of health promotion in early childhood are supporting
parenting programs, school readiness programs, parent and tot
programs or infant programs. Helping parents learn from elders
about traditional ways of parenting can help young children feel connected to
their community.
- Local Community Food Security: happens when Aboriginal community
members have healthy, safe traditional foods that are
easily accessible and sustainable. The traditional diets of Aboriginal people has changed over the years, and many do not have access to well balanced and healthy traditional foods. Finding ways to increase knowledge of our cultural teachings of traditional food sources will help support Local Food Security in our society today.
AHIP Success Stories
- Aboriginal Girls Day Camp (Pacific Association of First Nations Women) provides opportunities to teach and mentor young Aboriginal girls providing a sense of cultural identity, health awareness and positive self care through healthy lifestyles over a series of workshops, field trips and cultural teachings.
- Che Che Gah Towlth – Helping Each Other (Tla’Amin Community Health Board Society) improves the health status of people with chronic disease through increased self-responsibility and self-management through the transfer of knowledge and information within the community, and through professional support and exercise.
- First Nations Women’s Safety Network (Southern Stl’atl’imx Health Society) provides First Nations Outreach Workers to build community awareness on healthy relationships and to provide education on violence against women and Elder Abuse in the communities of Douglas, Samahquam, Skatin, N’Quatqua and Upper Squamish, through the Howe Sound Womens Centre.
- Urban Aboriginal Community Kitchen & Garden Project (Vancouver Native Health Society) builds Aboriginal community capacity by providing an opportunity for Indigenous food sovereignty by planting, harvesting, preparing foods and instilling traditional food procurement skills and knowledge back into the community.
Newly funded projects participate in the “Splash & Ripple” [pdf] training. This will help applicants to develop an Outcome Measurement Framework and a Monitoring Plan to help guide each projects activities and outcomes. The Splash and Ripple workshop training is held in January of each year. The Funding Cycle Diagram indicates other important dates for all AHIP projects.
AHIP 2011-2012 Funded Programs
For More Information
Leah Karpan
AHIP Program Assistant
Aboriginal Health Initiative Program
Suite 550, 601 W. Broadway
Vancouver, BC V5Z 4C2
Tel: 604-875-5600 ext. 63295
Fax: 604-875-4846
Email: leah.karpan@vch.ca
Urban Aboriginal Community Kitchen Garden Project
The SMARTFund sponsored Vancouver Native Health Society’s “Urban Aboriginal Community Kitchen Garden Project” to have a DVD produced on the wonderful work that is being done to create positive change for program participants, this is the end product of that session.
In February 2009 AHSI sponsored a Cultural Competency and Inclusion Forum to increase responsiveness of VCH staff to Aboriginal people’s health needs. Below is a link to the DVD which contains interviews of presenters and participants of the forum.
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