Healing Our Spirit Worldwide calls for abstracts

The Seventh Gathering of Healing Our Spirit Worldwide calls for abstracts

The Call for Abstracts has gone out from Healing Our Spirit Worldwide – The Seventh Gathering. Abstracts are currently being received from Aotearoa and indigenous health leaders, academics, health and social services, and cultural performers from around the world.

Healing Our Spirit Worldwide began in Canada in the 1980s. The first Gathering was in Edmonton in 1992. This year The Seventh Gathering is taking place in Aotearoa, New Zealand and is is being hosted by Te Rau Matatini who has formed strategic relationships with Waikato-Tainui Te Kauhanganui and the University of Waikato to ensure the success of the event in Hamilton from 15 – 19 November.

Te Rau Matatini ICE, Marama Parore says the Gatherings have been a cultural and spiritual movement celebrating the resiliency of indigenous peoples around the world in their struggle against alcohol and drug abuse. “This has been achieved through the development of successful proven models and programmes,” she says, “but increasingly the Gatherings have also come to incorporate a wider spectrum of indigenous health issues and responses.”

The Gathering will attract 1,500 people to Waikato University to share initiatives, programmes and solutions, learn from other each other, share strengths, hope and wisdom, and celebrate and express cultural practices, keeping alive the cultural and spiritual foundation of indigenous people. The theme for The Seventh Gathering is Mauri Ora which means life force. Mauri Ora is about the health and wellbeing of indigenous communities flourishing in positive directions. Within this theme there are four key work streams for each day of the Gathering. Indigenous Leadership. Indigenous Solutions. Indigenous Potential and Indigenous Futures.

Marama Parore says “these are exciting, forward looking themes. This Gathering gives voice to celebration, achievements and possibilities and we hope indigenous health leaders, academics, health and social services, and cultural performers from around the world will respond to our Call for Abstracts.”

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