Experiences of Aboriginal HIV/AIDS programs in Calgary: The great teacher of compassion

This is a qualitative study of how the urban Aboriginal population in Calgary, Alberta, Canada faces HIV/AIDS. It strives to understand how a global disease is translated within a particular historical and social context.

Contemporary Native people face many social challenges, a consequence of colonisation, Residential Schools and historical and on-going racism. HIV/AIDS Aboriginal prevention agencies try to combine Western and Native perspectives, but they privilege the western one, since they are planned, implemented and funded by non-Aboriginal initiatives.

According to Native people, HIV/AIDS is the Great Teacher of Compassion that “is here to teach the people how to live again as partners, families and communities”. A “culturally appropriate” prevention model would acknowledge history and follow a wholistic health approach, involving body, mind, emotions and spirit. It would involve Aboriginals at all stages of the program, since HIV/AIDS is closely related to identity processes, self-esteem, Treaty rights and re-gaining self-control.