Grandmothers unite to fight alcohol abuse

Growing up on an Alberta Cree reserve, Theresa Whiskeyjack would always listen closely when the community's elderly residents offered up words of advice. It was the kind of respect the youth of Saddle Lake First Nation rarely show these days, the 69-year-old observes.

But as part of an intriguing new network of "grandmother guides" throughout Alberta reserves, Mrs. Whiskeyjack has been trying to revive the ancient mentoring role of aboriginal seniors to fight a modern scourge. And her attempts to help curb the reserve's epidemic of fetal-alcohol syndrome seem to be working.

"It's pitiful. It's so rampant," she said of the problem. "[However] there are some young people who are now saying 'No.' When they find out they're pregnant, they'll come up to me and say ... 'I don't drink any more, I don't do drugs and I don't smoke,' and I think, 'Good for you.

The retired friendship-centre director is among about 300 grandmothers who have gone through training organized by Health Canada, then returned to their reserves to spread the word about fetal-alcohol syndrome, and informally counsel young mothers or would-be mothers.

The department now wants to expand and formalize the concept, offering a contract of up to $90,000 to experts who can lead additional training sessions for interested grandmothers.

"I figure it's the best program that ever came out," Mrs. Whiskeyjack said. "It's basically an old way, brought forward ... It's more effective than if you went and sat in a classroom for days and days as someone read from a book."

Research conducted in individual First Nations communities suggests that close to one in five reserve children are affected

by their pregnant mothers' alcohol consumption, almost 20 times the rate in the general population. It is another fallout of the grinding poverty, isolation, past government mistreatment and widespread abuse that is a fact of life in many aboriginal settlements, experts say.

Without treatment, fetal-alcohol children are disruptive in school, often get in trouble with the law and are more likely to die violent deaths, said Dr. Gideon Koren, one of the country's leading experts in the field. "It's really a terrible endemic that we are doing little about," he said.

The grandmothers concept, with its focus on reserves helping

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