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Dr. Evan Adams Director & Aboriginal Health Physician AdvisorOffice of the Provincial Health Officer, BC’s Ministry of Health
1081 Burrard Street
Vancouver, BC V6Z 1Y6 |
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Leah Walker is of Aboriginal, Danish and English ancestry and has strong family ties with Sto:lo Nation at Seabird Island. Leah is very interested in work that involves community partnerships, cultural safety, and working with medical and other health professionals in developing skills to better serve our communities. To this end, she currently teaches International Indigenous Experiences of Colonization, and an Aboriginal Health Elective that situates health professional students in First Nations communities to work with and learn from the people, leads the UBC Learning Circle, a weekly videoconferencing initiative connecting the First Nations lead health centres in BC, as well as facilitates a variety of workshops and sessions. Her research interests also lie in this area and she is currently working with the communities of Skidegate and Old Massett on a Cultural Safety Project, as well as internationally on a 5 year CIHR funded grant with partners in New Zealand, Australia and in Canada called, “Educating for equity: Exploring how health professional education can reduce disparities in chronic disease care and improve outcomes for Indigenous populations. |
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Jamie Witt is a graduate from the University of British Columbia’s First Nation Studies Program. Over the past six years, she has worked for a number of organizations with Aboriginal issues and culture as their focus, such as the UBC First Nations House of Learning, Xwi7xwa Library, the UBC Museum of Anthropology, the Bill Reid Gallery of Northwest Coast Art, and most recently the Division of Aboriginal People’s Health. She is originally from Ottawa, Ontario. |
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Genevieve Leis is of Estonian, Italian and Catalan descent, with close family ties to the Tahltan First Nation. She holds an M.A. in Curriculum Development, combined with Indigenous Governance from UVic. Her thesis was entitled “HIV Prevention from Aboriginal Youth Perspectives” and was based on her work managing a youth project for Healing Our Spirit BC Aboriginal AIDS Society. She is passionate about community empowerment through creative expression education, and has worked primarily in social justice and health issues resulting from politics, war, colonization and marginalization. She has worked both in Canada and internationally developing and running intensive educational youth projects. She has also developed curriculum in the areas of preventative health, leadership, social work training, conflict resolution and racism. Genevieve has previously worked in the House of Commons as a parliamentary assistant to an MP, and in 2010 moved back to Vancouver after four years living in Paris. |
