Elder Darla

CREATING SPACE.

We have so many young women right now that are coming into our institutions. And my motivation is knowing that we have time to create space for them to have that sacred understanding and that healing.

Pathways to Healing

DARLA
Indigenous Elder

My name is Darla Pratt.

I am the general population Elder to work in federal corrections with Indigenous women, currently at Fraser Valley Institution. I also work with the Pathways unit and minimum security.

And so within the scope of my work, I do a lot of our spiritual practices. I run sweat lodge ceremonies, pipe ceremonies, naming ceremonies. We do fire ceremonies, a number of ceremonies.

We target the Indigenous social history and work on intergenerational trauma to help folks to be able to heal essentially from the trauma that they faced in their life.

I feel like going to work every day is rewarding. It's an honor to be able to sit with, my brothers and sisters and the people that we serve every day and to witness the transformation and the change.

When you understand what happened to you, when you understand your pain, when you understand what happened to your people, it takes that pain away. And so when you watch somebody who has anger and who has been disconnected and who is filled with grief, when you watch them start to smile and start to pray and start to connect and start to understand the teachings, I think that's probably the most rewarding thing.  Because for each person that we see, even the little tiny bit of movement, we know that overall, that's going to lift up our nations. And it's going to bring healing to the future generations.