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The Healing Our Spirit Movement
The Healing Our Spirit Worldwide movement began as one person’s vision to create an international forum and movement focused on the alcohol and drug abuse issues and programs in Indigenous communities throughout the global community.
With the Second Gathering (1994) in Sydney, Australia and the Third (1998) in Rotorua, Aotearoa (New Zealand), HOSW established itself as the international cultural and spiritual movement celebrating the tenacity and resilience of Indigenous peoples around the world in the struggle against alcohol and drug abuse.
The fourth gathering of HOSW held in Albuquerque, New Mexico (2002), expanded the vision with the inclusion of health and governance issues. The Fourth Gathering provided two important developments:
• The Covenant – a document to be designed for use at many levels, promoting health and healing and ensuring these issues have a prominent place in the everyday life of Indigenous peoples around the world – was formulated to provide guidance and direction for Indigenous peoples in developing models of healing, self-determination and wholeness.
• The International Indigenous Council (HOSW IIC), the vision-keeping and advisory body consisting of Indigenous leaders from different countries.
The Fifth Gathering expanded the vision with the inclusion of health and governance issues in relation to alcohol and drug abuse Held in Edmonton, Canada (2006) saw increased participation of indigenous Peoples from the Pacific and expanded the vision of the Covenant of HOSW to make it one of the world’s most remarkable documents.
The Fifth Gathering’s Indigenous Delegation from Central and South America, sponsored by NNAPF, set the stage for their full and active inclusion in the HOSW movement. The Sixth Gathering is reaching out to more communities in Central & South America, as well as to those in Africa. Spread the word!
Healing Our Spirit Worldwide Covenant
Celebrating that our Creator has given Indigenous Peoples, who belong to the land and the sea, a unique and rich collection of gifts including mother earth, the sky and water, or families and nations, our culture and wisdom and our own lives;
Recognizing that these gifts rest at the heart of our past, our present and our future;
Believing that the Spirit is the energy that empowers us to share, replenish, protect and respect these gifts according to the Creator’s design;
Remembering the devastation and confusion that colonization brought, including alcohol and disease;
Grieving for the land taken and the loss of communal life;
We the Indigenous Peoples of the world having come together as part of the Healing Our Spirit Worldwide movement declare with one voice and heart our resolve to strengthen the Spirit of our Nations and Peoples, to clear from our hearts and minds the clouds of confusion and doubt.
We hold as true and as our guide the teaching of our grandmothers and grandfathers that;
We hold a sacred role to protect, maintain and respect the Creator’s gifts so that our children and generations of children after them may live a healthy and rich life;
Our responsibility to address, enhance and restore our sacred role; as custodians of these gifts we need to make wise decisions because we are accountable to the Creator and to generations to come;
The health and well-being of our people and nations is built on our ability to maintain compassionate, functioning relationships within ourselves, with the earth, each other, our families and communities;
Knowledge and wisdom are our partners and we must enrich them both and use them well if our children are to build a meaningful future.
We commit ourselves to work in unity and with resolve to strengthen and heal the spirit of our Peoples.
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