Aanii, My name is Melissa Jackson. I’m a band member from Shawanaga First Nation. I’m a lived experience advocate. I speak up for individuals who need help in speaking up for themselves. I’m doing this petition up for my fellow band members of Shawanaga First Nation.

If you feel like you’re being discriminating against or if you feel that your human rights have been broken by our social worker/housing manager. This is the time to voice your concerns and to start speaking up. Your input does matters to me. I do believe that everyone should be treated fairly by all workers including the chief and council. I haven’t been treated fairly myself in the past because of my background history. I know, how it feels to be treated with the disrespect by the band reps that are supposed to be there to help you. In order to get treated fairly and to be heard by our chief and council. We need %50 of band members signatures in order to get this matter brought to the table.

Our community is a self-governing body and we do everything by voting these days. This worker has been discriminating against certain individuals who suffer from mental health issues, addictions and alcoholism. From my knowledge a social worker/ housing manager should have compassion for their own people. They should be helping the ones who need it the most especially the single men in our community. Evicting them off the reserve and making it someone else’s issues is not the way we should be dealing with these matters. All single men should have a home of their own, their health and safety should be number one on that list. 

If you or your family members have been treated unfairly by this one worker or any worker now is the time to seek justice for yourself and for your family. It has been a long time in dealing with this discrimination, nepotism, favouritism and unprofessionalism. I strongly recommend that the social worker that works in a First Nation where there is a lot of cases of inter generational trauma is happening within the community. We need to start Implementing the human rights handbook. We need structure and prevention for this on going behaviour that the band members face daily.

If we don’t work together as a team, this on going treatment will continue. Being treated like you don’t matter isn’t a good feeing and it does hurt your spirit. We need more compassionate workers that care for the helpless and hopeless. I work hard to make sure that everyone gets treated fairly and I make sure that they get the respect that they deserve. Click the link to access the human rights handbook for First Nation of Canada . https://www.chrc-ccdp.gc.ca/sites/default/files/fn_handbook.pdf @missa_rose_333：https://chng.it/ 5WHgYvP4hs