CANADA
Regina Leader-Post
Jennifer Ackerman, Regina Leader-Post
Conrad Weenie was diagnosed with diabetes in 1997. Now 53 years old, he has lost a leg due to complications and is close to losing another. Once that happens, he’ll go from getting around on crutches into a wheelchair.
He said the results of a recent study that show a link between hunger and malnutrition in residential schools and long-term health issues, such as obesity and diabetes, in Indigenous peoples doesn’t surprise him at all.
“My grandfather raised me … He went to he Delmas residential school and he told me stories about what they ate, the nuns and priests, they had all the good food and (the students) were just given porridge all the time,” said Weenie who attended the North Central Health Fair and BBQ on Wednesday.
“They only ate good once a year and that was Christmastime he told me. But most of the time it was just the church, the priests and the nuns, that ate all the good food and the Indians were … hungry all the time,” said Weenie.
He attended the health fair, which focused on diabetes risk awareness, after a home care worker told him about it. Hosted by Diabetes Canada at the Rainbow Youth Centre in the North Central neighbourhood, the fair provided an opportunity for residents to get a diabetes risk assessment done as well as get information about resources available to them in the community.
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