ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Journey Well Health & Wellness is a group of independent allied health care providers who are committed to wellness for all. Individuals, both clients and partners, arrive to our practice from many cultural backgrounds and experiences. This includes Indigenous people. As such it is imperative that we acknowledge the atrocities that have occurred against Indigenous people globally and specifically in Canada.
As a practice…
We acknowledge the extensive and traumatic history that settlers have inflicted, and continue to inflict, upon Indigenous people and the impacts, known and unknown, that has had and continues to have on them individually and as a people.
We acknowledge Indigenous voices, and hold their experiences of colonization and oppression as true and valid.
We acknowledge the longstanding care taking role that Indigenous people have held on this land that we live and work on, noting that some of that land was shared by choice, while much was taken by force.
Our physical office in Woodstock is located on land that was traditional land of Indigenous people, specifically the Haudenosaunee, the Anishnaabek, and Lanape, while our clients come from across the province of Ontario which is subject to various different treaties and is the traditional land of many different Indigenous groups.
We would like to recognize the Indigenous communities in close proximity to the city of Woodstock: Chippewas of The Thames First Nation; Oneida Nation of The Thames; Munsee-Delaware Nation; Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation; and Six Nations of The Grand (which consists of Mohawk, Cayuga, Seneca, Onondaga, Oneida and Tuscarora Nations).
And with acknowledgement we also want to express deep gratitude...
We are grateful for the land that we live and work on.
We are grateful to the original and ongoing curators of this land, and for the opportunities to learn from its stewards.
We are grateful for the connections available to us that assist us in providing diversely appropriate care.
We are grateful for the opportunity to serve our community and the trust that the community places with us.
From a place of acknowledgement and gratitude, we want to commit ourselves to action.
We commit to treating the land and people who live on it with kindness and respect.
We also commit to doing our part to support healing for the earth and its peoples, in whatever capacity we may.
We commit to ongoing unpacking and unlearning our biases, and seeking knowledge about the history, the cultures, and the steps that need to be taken to move closer to reconciliation.
We further commit to ongoing efforts to observe, honour, reconcile and partner with the first peoples whose lands and water we benefit from today. This includes intentional actions to decolonize our practice and this land.
We commit to supporting our community and being open-hearted, open-minded, anti-racist, and anti-oppressive. This includes being open to feedback about how we have acted in contradiction to these ways of being.
