Mini pow wow honours mothers and late FASD advocate
By Rick Garrick
THUNDER BAY— The Honouring Mothers Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD) Awareness Day 11th Annual Mini Pow Wow, held Sept. 9 in Thunder Bay, featured an honour song for the late Dave Fulton to acknowledge his work with FASD.
“He is the original person who started FASIN, the Fetal Alcohol Support and Information Network, in Thunder Bay,” says Lynda Banning, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder regional program worker for Northern Superior Region with the Anishinabek Nation. “He retired five years ago and moved to southern Ontario and passed away, so we wanted to honour him because when he was here in Thunder Bay, he and his wife would participate in this event annually.”
Judy Kay, FASD worker with Children’s Centre Thunder Bay, says Fulton and his wife Margie started up FASIN about 20 years ago to help support parents who were raising children with FASD.
“About 20 years ago, there was not too many services out there for parents,” Kay says. “So Dave and Margie started FASIN to support parents in their journey to raise their children. The [FASD Awareness Day] planning committee thought about Dave and his wife Margie and all of the work they had done in Thunder Bay for parents and wanted to honour him with the honour song.”
Northern Superior Anishinabek Nation Regional Deputy Grand Council Chief Edward Wawia says it is important to support FASD Awareness Day because “our children are the future.”
“We have to get the message out there mainly to the mothers that are having alcohol or drug problems to get treatment, and at the very least, stop drinking [alcohol] until their child is born and continue [abstaining] after if they are breastfeeding,” Chief Wawia says. “With all due respect, get out and look after your children, look after yourselves and bring up your children right because we depend on them for our future.”
FASD is a brain injury that can occur when an unborn baby is exposed to alcohol, according to the federal government’s webpage on FASD. The webpage states that FASD is a lifelong disorder with effects that include physical, mental, behavioural, and learning disabilities, which can vary from mild to severe. It also states that FASD is the leading known cause of preventable developmental disability in Canada.
Ramona Thompson, band rep with Rocky Bay Family Services in Thunder Bay, says it was important to help family members understand the importance of a healthy lifestyle.
“We want our families to know that we are here to support them, that we network with all these other organizations as well,” Thompson says. “We also want them to know that intervention is important, it is important that we stay healthy and we have healthy families.”
Kiaya Drake, community support worker for the FASD Program at the Thunder Bay Indigenous Friendship Centre and one of the members of the FASD Awareness Day planning committee, says it is important to raise awareness of FASD and the way to prevent it.
“It is lifelong, it is incurable, so it is really important to start at the beginning when a mother is carrying life and just the importance of zero consumption of alcohol — there is no safe amount to drink,” Drake says.
Drake says FASD Awareness Day began with a moment of reflection.
“It’s a beautiful event,” Drake says. “It’s not only raising awareness, but because it is around Pow Wow, it’s also about healing, about coming together, about community and about supporting each other and being there all together.”