Our Harm Reduction Story:
In 2018, our community—the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa—was awarded a two-year policy grant through the AIDS United Syringe Access Fund to assist in addressing gaps in the Tribe’s ability to care for those at risk of opioid overdose and exposure to HIV due to injection drug use. One outcome of this policy grant was to create a toolkit for tribal and rural community clinics in Wisconsin implementing Syringe Services Programs (SSPs).
As we looked at other toolkits for guidance, we appreciated their objective and theoretical approach. However, as Native women who are deeply involved in the daily struggles of people in our community who use drugs, we approach the work of harm reduction with our whole beings (physical, intellectual, spiritual and social) and through a lens of time that encompasses past, present, and future generations.
We conceive of the world through personal and community narratives. Stories, for us, contain powerful, healing qualities on par with pharmaceutical medicines provided by state-licensed medical doctors.
As Anishinaabeg living in the United States, our ability to recreate reality through the telling of stories is how we have persevered in the face of centuries of existential challenges. In order to be authentic and powerful, we took a subjective, narrative approach.
What follows is our harm reduction story.
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The Apostle Islands are a group of 22 islands in Lake Superior, off the Bayfield Peninsula in northern Wisconsin. The largest of these, Madeline Island, was long a spiritual center of the Lake Superior Ojibwe.
“We came to understand that there’s a certain magic to harm reduction. The magic comes from heart acts, which are difficult to explain, document, and reproduce through written words alone. Harm reduction has been passed down from person to person, through the demonstration of acts of free kindness, in service of the public good, clear of judgment and reproach.”
From Expanding the Circle of Care: A Practical Guide to Syringe Services for Tribal and Rural Communities