Skip to content

Blanket session teaches compassion

First nations youth hopes workshop brings understanding
Mel Edgar

Blankets can give warmth or comfort, but for one Tla’amin (Sliammon) First Nation youth representative they might also bring about positive change.

Devin Pielle, a young member of the Tla’amin nation, is hoping that a hands-on workshop, known as the Blanket Exercise, can help change how first nations people are seen in Canada.

“The exercise can create understanding,” said Pielle. “Many non-first nations people care and want to help, but they don’t really understand the history.”

Using blankets, the exercise guides participants through the relationship between the crown, the nation of Canada and first nations people; demonstrating the damaging and long-lasting outcomes of colonialism, including smallpox, the Indian Act and residential schools.

“First Nations people have a lot of sadness in their past,” said Pielle. “The exercise creates compassion and can help break stereotypes.”

In partnership with Powell River Diversity Initiative (PRDI), Pielle said she has facilitated the exercise with teachers and students in Powell River, as well as Tla’amin youth.

“My mandate is to run the educational workshop ahead of treaty implementation,” said Pielle, “but I hope to continue running it long after.”

The final agreement between Tla’amin and the province of BC was signed in March of 2014 and goes into effect April of 2016. The agreement brings many changes for the Tla’amin people, including land ownership.

Pielle learned how to conduct the Blanket Exercise this summer, as a youth representative from Tla’amin at the National Youth Aboriginal Advisory Circle in Winnipeg. Before Pielle could bring what she learned back to Powell River, she had to overcome her own fears.

“Before I went to Winnipeg I had an extreme fear of public speaking,” she said. “But going helped me to open up and be stronger. They taught us that if we change ourselves, we can influence our family and then change the community.”

Pielle said that as a first nations woman she often experiences subtle forms of racism. Even something as simple as arriving early for a meeting can umask negative assumptions about first nations people, she said.

“A woman saw me standing there and kept asking me if I needed something or was looking for a ride,” said Pielle. “People have a hard time believing that someone young and with brown skin is wanting to do something productive with their day.”

The Blanket Exercise was developed as a teaching tool by a group of Canadian churches. It is run across the country as part of a collective effort to improve relations between first nations and non-first nations people.

“People come in not knowing what to expect,” she said. “I have seen a lot of powerful responses, even tears.”

Pielle will be facilitating the exercise in two sessions at the Celebration of Cultural Diversity at noon and 2 pm on Saturday, November 21, at Powell River Recreation Complex. Additional sessions are also planned in December, January and February.

For more information about the Blanket Exercise, readers can contact Pielle at dpielle@gmail.com.