
Our People.
Our Health.
Our Way.
SCO Healthy Living Campaign

Anishinaabe and Dakota teachings are powerful. They kept us healthy for millennia.
Today, we have access to all kinds of health tips and advice but it can be hard to know how our traditional teachings can be integrated into our modern lifestyles or how they fit with other forms of knowledge.
SCO is promoting healthy living and encouraging good health and well-being through a multi-media campaign that centres on traditional Anishinaabe and Dakota teachings and focuses on seven themes:
- Food is Medicine
- Water is Medicine
- Movement is Medicine
- Community is Medicine
- Land is Medicine
- Culture is Medicine
- Knowledge is Medicine
Billboards and e-billboards sharing information on SCO’s Healthy Living campaign are up in Brandon, Dauphin, Portage la Prairie, Selkirk, and Winnipeg. If you’re catching the bus, you’ll see the campaign posters on buses and at transit shelters in Winnipeg and Brandon.
To learn more visit the Seven Paths to Better Health webpage.
SCO Health Transformation
There is a documented 11 year and growing gap in life expectancy between First Nation citizens and all others living in what is now known as Manitoba. This gap exists due to the harms of colonization.
Colonization made it possible for Canada to enforce racist laws and government policies intended to destroy First Nation identities, remove us from our lands, separate us from our families, ignore our legal systems, and strip away our health. The harmful effects of colonization have impacted the lives of First Nation people for generations, including our personal and collective health.
A term we use to describe these harms is ‘colonial determinants of health’. Determinants of health are the many factors which impact a person’s or a population’s health for better or worse. SCO proposes a health care system built on First Nations determinants of health which include:
- Our rights to adequate healthy and traditional foods
- Access to and protection of our lands
- Access to and protection of the waters
- Revitalization of and connection to our cultures and languages
As First Nation people, we have never stopped fighting for our rights, our health, and our future. Our health transformation journey is underway. All levels of government agree the control of health care planning and service delivery for First Nation people rightfully belongs with First Nation people. For our Nations to have control, the way forward must involve decolonization of the health care system and erasing all traces of racism from within it.
We are building a new health care system that embodies our holistic Anishinaabe and Dakota understandings of health. It is holistic and encompasses the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual well-being of the individual, family, and community. This new, decolonized health care system will be called the Southern First Nations Health Authority (SFNHA) and is being created by First Nation people, for First Nation people. The creation of SFNHA is based on extensive community engagement. For more information and SCO’s recommendations on how to decolonize health care, read the Decolonization Report: Recognizing First Nations Sovereignty.
Restoring First Nations Health Inforgraphic
Colonial Determinants of First Nations Health
The Southern Chiefs’ Organization has a mandate to carry out Health Transformation and establish culturally responsive and enhanced health care services for our member Nations. The decolonized health care system created by SCO will empower our citizens to access care that is right for them and closer to home. The ongoing work is guided by the Chiefs of the southern First Nations and Elders and Knowledge Keepers. Our Elders and Knowledge Keepers Committee has gifted Health Transformation with the names: