Metis Post Secondary Education Conference in Winnipeg

Mino Kisikaw- “I said today is a good day.”

I will be speaking on the Barriers to Post Secondary Education on behalf Former Foster Children and Historical Abuse Survivors.

Before I start I will tell you a little bit about my personal life and why I am here today on behalf of Former and current Foster Children.

I became a Crown ward in Thunder Bay, Ontario when I was 12 years old. I was Sexually, Physically, Psychologically, Intellectually, Spiritually and Culturally assaulted by the hands of people who were suppose to protect me.

I was in 15 different Foster Homes in 2 years. I was severed from my Culture, My Language, My Family, My Sense of Belonging and My Sense of Self identity. This learnt behaviour that I was taught by people who were suppose to make me become a beautiful flourishing young woman taught me Violence, Anger, Hatred, Humility, Instability and many more deviant behaviours. I carried this unconstructive behaviour with me to other stages of my life including Relationships, Parenting, My Adolescents and My Activities of Daily Living. I grew up alone and not knowing the whereabouts of my family and I didn’t have a sense of belonging in society. I was just surviving from day to day. I entered many relationships that were very abusive and I became a Mother when I was 16 years old.

I am a Mother of 7 children with one whom is deceased. I became a grandmother at the age of 32. I fled this life of abuse and came to Manitoba in 1990. This negative ghost that followed me throughout my life was very traumatic. It followed me through all the stages in my life because this is what I was taught by my Foster Parents and the Agency. I became re victimized again by the Child Welfare that was supposed to protect me when I was a child, as they took my children from me when I was 30 years old due to my childhood issues and deviant behaviours as an Adult. Today I still don’t get visitations with my children. I haven’t seen them for 3 years. 3 out of 5 were adopted when they became Permanent Wards of the State.

The Agency that they should have went to was not mandated yet but still my children were adoptable material. This happened when the Devolution was happening here in Manitoba. Here goes another generation severed from their family, culture, language, a sense of belonging and their self identity.

Today, I am engaged to a wonderful man from Sudan, Africa. Deng, I don’t know how you could lived with and handled the baggage that I carried to our relationship. Thank you for all your genuine support and helping me reconnect to my Stolen Life. I am Transforming from my old destructive ways that I was taught by people who were supposed to protect me and make me into a young flourishing woman. I have to reprogram my thoughts, my behaviour, my attitude, and my actions. I have searched and found my identity at 34 years old. I was reconnected with my biological family after 34 years of not knowing them.( I come from the Blondeau and Gardipie from Estevan Saskatchewan) and I had a family that I could of and should have gone to. My children should of have also gone to them as well. This was negligence on part of the Child Welfare System. Why did they not send me home where I belonged?

Child Welfare is supposed to be the last resort. Why didn’t my children go to my biological family? These are questions that I will get answers too.

I have founded “SAIFC” which stands for Surviving Abuse in Foster Care. I have organized the 1st Annual Walk last May and am going to be organizing and pleased to announce that Manitoba Youth in Care will be apart of the 2nd Annual Walk for Survivors of the Child Welfare System. This walk will take place on May 18, 2007.

I am here today as a Post Secondary student from the University of Winnipeg who will get her double Major in Conflict Resolutions and Criminal Justice Studies. This is my short term goal. My long term goal is to become A Human Rights Lawyer, Métis Rights, Child Rights and also specialize in Aboriginal Law. I will succeed. I am on an Intensive Healing Journey and no one will get in the way of this process.

Many years have been lost and stolen from me due to negligence on part of a Mandated Agency and I have many years of hard work and dedication ahead of me to resolve the issues that were inflicted upon me from a Child Protection Agency.

The Barriers I face today as a Post Secondary Student are Great and Many. These are my Barriers.

Trying to gain a support system from my family.

Trying to build a bond to my biological family after 34 years of not knowing them.
Trying to visit my Mother after 24 years of not seeing her. I guess this makes me an immigrant in my own country.

Trying to find funding and scholarships but there is an age barrier on some scholarships. This in it self does not make sense when I still have 25years of working experience left. Some scholarships for Foster Children have an age barrier of 30 years old which I do not qualify for.

Many of us healing in different phases in our life. Some of the scholarships, we don’t even qualify for. This doesn’t make sense to me. We can educate our seniors but we can’t educate someone who has 25 years of working left.

I have a lot healing to do with my own childhood experiences that make’s it psychologically draining as an Adult and hard to recover what was lost and stolen from me.

Worrying and wondering if my own children that were taken from me are experiencing the same abuse that I was inflicted with. This is very traumatizing for me.

Wishing and praying that one day I will see my children before it is too late to build a bond with them. Each day that passes is harder to build that relationship that was severed. I know this from my own personal experience with my own mother.

Trying to learn and speak my Cree language as an adult is very difficult.


I am a strong and proud Métis woman whose only part of my life that wasn’t stolen from me is my Spirit and Voice. The Child Welfare System will never get this. I say No More will this continue. This genocide has been continuing for generations and I say today that it will stop. I have dedicated my life to this journey and advocate for our youth who need us to stand strong and proud for them. You are hurting our children and creating criminals who lash out in forms of violence because this is the only way they know how. We have jumped to another form of slavery with our young sisters who are spiriting their souls on the streets of Canada to buy Drugs or feed their children. Sexual Exploitation is a crime.

You never gave us our voice. It was always the Social Workers or the Agency that spoke for us. This is a violation of our Human Rights. What happened to the Charter of Rights and Freedoms? Isn’t this the Law of the Land?
What happened to the United Nations Rights of the Child 1989?

We are Over Represented in the CJS, the child welfare and many other areas. We have had many social injustices done to us. We were severed from our land, our children, our families, our culture, our language. We live in Poverty and are lashing out on society. Our gangs are speaking to us by means of graffiti on the walls and we are not recognizing this. (Society says look at these kids they have know respect.) Look at our young generation committing suicide, being incarcerated, sexually exploited, joining gangs. Are we going to have a future generation if this continues?



My recommendations to the Government of Manitoba and the Government of Canada are these:

Family Preservation Program- Reflecting new knowledge and recognition of the intergenerational impacts of the Residential Schools, apartheid of the reserve system, systemic oppression and re- trauamatization of First Nations and Métis mother and fathers whose children have been removed from their care. We have Parents whose children are apprehended by the child welfare agencies and denied family reconciliation.

Healing Center- in Winnipeg specifically designed and operated for survivors of rape and abuse in foster care and adoptive homes to address the traumatic impacts of assaults by strangers acting as or familiar to foster and adoptive parents and or foster care workers.
Safe house- for survivors of foster care and or adoption who are escaping sex slavery in its various forms.

Child/ Family Advocate - working to assist and intervene where requested on behalf of children in care and /or with mothers or other family members. When these children are reporting assaults or neglect.

Reunification Program-including an investigation unit to trace and remedy illegal adoptions, historic and recent.

Scholarship Program- guaranteed education (secondary and post secondary) for survivors of abuse in foster care and or adoptive homes and their children. This should apply to current foster children who have not been abused and Residential School Survivors and their children. I would like to see RESP’s set up for all children currently in the child welfare system.
Restorative Justice Program- for children who are from the child welfare system and who are deviant and committing acts of violence. We need to get to the roots of this issue and start healing as a Nation!

An Accountability Act that makes the Agencies and Authorities Civilly Liable for the Criminal Acts of various forms that happen to the children in foster care or adoptive homes and Family members of those whose lives were lost or disabled because of the effects of such abuse while in the province’s care or adopted through arrangements made by it’s agencies.

A Community In Home Support System- to help and teach parenting skills, provide early intervention, life skills, and to offer respite and pay for Psychotherapy that is requested by Professionals when assessments are requested by the Agencies and recommendations are made to follow these assessments.

This is to help mothers and fathers who are former foster children and who have been victimized by the system to help them keep their children with them in their homes.

This needs to be operated by a private organization formed by Immigrant Officials, Métis and First Nations Elders and leaders but funded by the government.

Children who are made Wards of the state are sometimes abused then this is covered up by removing the child from the home and placing them in a different home. We need to know that are Future Generation are safe and not manipulated by the Agency’s staff and support workers.

This Genocide has been going on for generations and it is time for the government to start paying for the damages that have been inflicted on our children, parents and grandparents. These are programs that we need to remedy the impacts and affects that this has had on our generations.

Martin Luther King Jr. once said “I have a Dream that one day Blacks and Whites would come together walking hand in hand and this became a reality.” and this is my Dream and VISION that one day we would start to gather our families, our children, our land, our culture, our language and live in peace and harmony.

Meegwhich. Akoski, Thank you