The Stand Up and Speak Up Racism and Mental Health Awareness Walk grows exponentially

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY—The Stand Up and Speak Up Racism and Mental Health Awareness Walk was a success with at least three times the turnout this year at Confederation College in Thunder Bay.

“It’s been wonderful — we’ve had over 4,000 shares on Facebook with the event page,” says Ashley Nurmela, a Red Rock Indian Band citizen who helped launch the Stand Up anti-racism walk with her fellow Native Child and Family Services students in 2015. “We have at least tripled our attendance with regards to last year and the first year. I would say it is pretty big this year. I often refer to it as my baby — I think it has graduated to toddler status and it’s grown legs and it’s running away.”

The walk was hosted by Nurmela, a Confederation College alumna and First Nation, Métis and Inuit Community liaison officer with the Lakehead Public School Board, and Jodi Afonso, president of the Student Union of Confederation College, on April 13 from the college to Balmoral St., along the walking path on Balmoral and then back to the college.

“I feel like our community, our youth in our community as well, need to see that there’s so many people in our community that have the same mindset, have the same goals, that want nothing but the best for our futures,” Nurmela says. “And by bringing them all together, we share food; we share laughter; and our personal stories sometimes. It just brings our community closer.”

Nurmela appreciated the wide range of responses from walkers during the walk, which included, “Wow, this is amazing” and “Thank you for doing this.”

“I was speaking with one woman on the walk and she said she was so glad she came because it was exactly what she needed, to see the community together,” Nurmela says.

The walk included comments by Thunder Bay—Superior North MP Patty Hajdu, minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Labour, and a keynote address by Stan Wesley, who focused on celebrating success and advancing good, healthy relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples.

“The goal of this event is to make a positive difference in our schools and community,” Afonso says. “By adding Speak Up to the pre-existing Stand Up initiative, we hope to generate awareness and help remove the stigma associated with mental health. The SUCCI Board of Directors and staff have been extremely supportive, and have worked diligently to make this idea come to fruition. We want to thank all of our sponsors for their generosity. Our community has truly joined together to bring attention to these important topics and we are grateful.”

Hajdu raised the experiences that Nurmela was facing when she helped launch the Stand Up campaign in 2015.

“Ashley talked about the experiences she had as an Indigenous woman facing racism, overt personal racism, in her life and the hurtful things that were said to her and done to her and how she needed to stand up,” Hajdu says.

Hajdu also spoke about the importance of adding the mental health component to the annual walk.

“Jody came on because she wanted to make sure we were talking about how racism and stigma and the feeling of being excluded, the feeling of being treated differently because of what you look like or what you can do or what you can’t do or what you think, causes us to feel unwell, causes us pain,” Hajdu says. “And when you experience that pain over and over, it causes us to not be well.”