• About Sandra

• Visit to Belfast in March 2007

• 'Two-Spirited' - embracing both female and male spirits

• Visit Programme

• Press coverage

About Sandra

Sandra Laframboise, a Native of the Algonquin-Cree people, is chief and elder of the Vancouver-based Dancing to Eagle Spirit Society.

In Vancouver, Sandra and her society work with individuals and groups in the Native and wider non-Native community using the traditional teachings and practices used of her people to overcome all kinds of spiritual, emotional, physical and mental injury and harm. A registered psychiatric nurse and spiritual counsellor, Sandra is a regular speaker at provincial and national conferences organised by governmental and non-governmental agencies in the health sector.

Native holistic teachings and practices aim to balance the individual in relation to the world. The beliefs of Native Americans are what sustained the cohesion of their societies before European conquest. Now, many natives are recovering their traditions in order to heal themselves and others in the face of the very real and crushing social problems in their communities of abject poverty, poor housing, poor education, endemic homelessness, drug and alcohol dependence.

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Visit to Belfast in March 2007

This March, Sandra is giving a series of talks and workshops in Belfast to introduce individuals and groups in all sections of the community here to the traditional teachings and practices she employs in the belief that these can enhance the holistic (spiritual, emotional, physical and mental) well-being of people here as much as they do for her own community.

Sandra’s talks focus on three topics: the Medicine Wheel (a broad introduction to the traditions), Sweat Lodge ceremonies and the Two-Spirit Nation, and will be interactive in the sense that those attending will be asked to participate as Sandra demonstrates rituals and techniques.

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'Two-Spirited' - embracing both female and male spirits

Sandra is also Two-Spirited (embracing both female and male spirits), which means she is an individual who challenges conventional gender roles. As such she warmly welcomes trans people, as well as lesbian, gay or bisexual people. Her visit was sponsored in part by fund-raising activities in the native two-spirit community of Vancouver, on the basis of cultural exchange.

The visit was also supported by QueerSpace in conjunction with the Voluntary Service Bureau, Belfast.

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Visit Programme
 

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Press coverage

The News Letter (a daily morning newspaper in Northern Ireland) interviewed Sandra while she was over. You can read the article here.

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