Chii kayeh: Teaching healthy relationships and healthy sexuality

April 24, 2010 by Patrick McDonagh

“An elder taught me a lesson once,” recalls Irene Otter. “She said, ‘Throughout your life you are putting things in your packsack, and it can sometimes get too heavy. You have to take out what you don’t need, and only carry things that will help you along your journey.’”  

This personal lesson has been transformed into one of the teaching tools for the Chii kayeh iyaakwaamiih course on relationships and sexual health for secondary three students (the name means “you, too, be careful”). The end of each chapter in the course workbook presents a list of important points: for instance, after the “assertive communication” chapter, list items include “I know about the benefits of using an assertive communication style,” “I can identify common sources of harmful peer pressure in my life,” and “I learned some strategies to refuse harmful peer pressure without feeling guilty.” Students clip out those points they find most meaningful and place them in a paper niimuutaan (a traditional packsack) built into the book’s inside back cover. The exercise recreates Otter’s experience, and provides a visual, tangible means of collecting knowledge.

Otter was one of the Cree consultants working on the chii kayeh program, which began in 2006 as a collaboration between Cree Public Health, the Cree School Board, and a group from the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). Drawing on data collected from a two-year pilot project in Waswanipi and Waskaganish, including interviews with students and teachers, the team has shaped the program into the current form now taught in the schools of all nine communities.  

As Otter, who lives in Waswanipi, explains, “We wanted the workbook to be culturally oriented for Cree students, so we use the aashuumiih ceremony and the medicine wheel. And we use the example of geese flying in a V so kids can understand how a team works together. Most of these ideas are visual, so the book uses lots of pictures to explain sex and health education.” The workbook’s two main characters, Siibii and Siibiish (the names mean “river” and “little river” or “creek,” respectively), confront the questions and dilemmas that most youth experience around their sexuality, such as how (and why!) to articulate what one is feeling, to express whether one is ready to have sex, and to have safe, responsible sex.  

“Chii kayeh was initially concerned with controlling STIs,” says Andrée-Anne Bourdeau, who taught the program in Waskaganish during its first year and is now its coordinator. The Cree communities experience rates for chlamydia that are six times the national average, and gonorrhea rates four times above average. These numbers are especially worrying for HIV, which could spread quickly if it enters the community. But as the program took shape, other concerns and issues presented themselves, including unplanned pregnancies, Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and violence in relationships. The program helps students develop the knowledge and skills needed to face these issues. For example, they learn to tell the difference between a healthy relationship and an unhealthy one, the steps to help them solve a problem and where to get help when needed.  

After some initial nervousness, students quickly warm up to the course, says Pamela Clayton, who has been teaching the course at Waswanipi’s Willie J. Happyjack School since its first appearance in 2006. “They are very shy at first, but soon they realize the program is about things they are experiencing, and they become more comfortable. They really like the section on asserting yourself, at the beginning of the book, as well as the section on waiting for later to have sex, as a lot of teens, especially girls, feel pressure. This program is giving them a strong chance to say ‘No’,” she says. “And of course they are interested in the condom.” When asked about the biggest changes over the program’s evolution, Clayton points to its strategies for engaging students with the material. “Students are evaluating their own progress. At the start of each lesson they identify goals, and at the end they assess whether or not they reached them, which makes them part of the educational process,” she says.  

And she also points to the integration of Cree concepts and approaches. The student workbook stresses the importance of the sacred circle of life, uses imagery rooted in the daily life of the Cree communities, and relies upon aashuumiih, the traditional Cree way of showing and telling that enables people to pass along knowledge. Indeed, at the year’s end students also assume the role of teachers, working in groups to find ways of passing along their fresh knowledge. This year, students in Whapmagoostui made a song about peer pressure and created a mural of the sacred circle of life, which will stay in the school long after the course has ended and the students have graduated. Meanwhile, Clayton’s students in Waswanipi are developing a public service announcement aimed at younger students, hoping to broadcast it on local radio.  

“The program evolved because of people with different cultural and professional backgrounds working together,” says Bourdeau. “And we want to continue creating a local network with elders, health care professionals, and other community members. But it is up to the schools in each community to support the program now.” However, while the program was taught in all nine Cree communities, it is not assured a place in these schools next year. “We worked hard to get this program to the other communities, and I’m happy they are interested in it,” says Otter. “But they are still going to need a little help, so I hope we can continue to work with the universities. I feel this is my baby too, so I want to see it grow and do something good.”  
 

Related link:

chii kayeh iyaakwaamiih Program on Relationships and Sexual Health