"Good health means that you're in balance, body, mind, and spirit."

To live a good and healthy life, the Anishinabe-Ojibwe people received knowledge, instructions, and help from the Creator which taught the importance of maintaining a balance between our mental, physical, and spiritual health. Family is at the center of a good way of life.

Episode five of WaasaInaabidaa - We Look In All Directions examines our holistic approach to good health and the role of traditional medicine and spiritual healers. Also chronicled is the devastating impact to Ojibwe health brought by European born epidemids, a shrinking land base, and government policies of assimilation and acculturation. The program looks at the affects of boarding schools, adoptions, and other traumatic events that caused generations of grief, anger and dysfunctional family dynamics. Learn also how our people maintained their health through improvements in our health delivery systems beginning in 1955 with the creation of the Indian Health Service & continuing with the training of our own people in Western medicine & treatment.

This episode concludes with reaffirmation of traditional healing based on living a good way of life with renewed emphasis on spiritual healing. It examines important milestones such as passage of the American Indian Religious Freedom Act, the growth & success of culturally appropriate models of treatment for substance abuse & other social ills, as well as the resurgence of traditional medicine combined with our own modern health clinics.