Does Andy Scott sound like an Aboriginal Name?

While in Saskatoon last week, I picked up a book by Harold Lerat
called "Treaty Promises: Indian Reality." It reminded me how ignorant
I am about the Indian situation and its history here in Canada. I
come from England where the only education I received on Indian
Affairs was from John Wayne movies. This is surprising since the
English were largely responsible for stealing other people's land
around the world in the 19th century. You would have thought we would
have learnt something from the mistakes they made. Anyway, my visit
to Saskatoon, with its large aboriginal community, has prompted me
to start reading and researching a lot more about the current
situation in Canada. For some time I've had a desire to produce a
photo essay on youth culture among the Inuit and will probably still
do this. But, I think it would be interesting to broaden this project
to include aboriginal communities as a whole. The suicide rate among
aboriginal youths is about 10x the national average. Why do things
remain so bad for these communities in this day and age? Why is the
Minister of Indian & Northern Affairs a man named Andy Scott? Could
we not have that department represented by an aboriginal? These are
some of the questions I'd like to explore over the next few months.
I'll keep you posted.

There Is Hope!

A friend's son asked me to make a presentation at his high school
about my trip to India. It was a grade 11 world politics class and so
I biased the conversation & debate toward international aid and the
roles of the UN, IMF and the World Bank. I used my trip to India to
illustrate one of the more successful programs administered by the UN
(WHO). I was so impressed with the intelligence and awareness of
these kids. Considering that my generation (the baby boomers) are
responsible for much of the mess we see in the world today, the onus
is on these younger kids to attempt to put things right. A huge
responsibility! I'm sure I was pretty ignorant when I was 16 and
certainly didn't know (or even want to know) anything about world
politics. But these kids understood and were able to debate the
central issues around poverty and health. They were also very attuned
to how fortunate they are and the need to share and maybe even change their lifestyles a little.

On a different note, check out my new website at www.johnhasyn.com. I'm now totally in control of the design and content and I'm very happy with it. Thank you Lena Ho of Allina Creative Designs for all the great work you did on my previous site.