Page 17 - Demo

COVID-19 | TESTING AND VACCINATIONS
Ongoing in 2021-2022
Public Health COVID-19 testing and vaccination clinics were offered regularly at PAQ and PAQ2 throughout 2021-2022 to keep community members safe and healthy.
oUR sTORIES
KIM DELISLE
I am Mohawk from Kahnawake. At the age of twenty-eight, I started my Bachelor of Education degree at McGill University. Going to school full time and being a single mother was not easy. I worked as a teacher in Kahnawake for sixteen years. Needing a change, I started to work as a Family Coordinator at the Native Montreal Women’s shelter for the next
six years. I took classes in Social Work at McGill University for a year, and I moved up to a supervisor position. Missing teaching, I went to Northern Quebec to work at Cegep Felicien, teaching special needs education to educators. However, I lost both of my parents, missed my family, and decided to come home permanently after four years.
I worked at Chez Doris for six years on Indigenous housing issues in
Montreal. When COVID started, and schools closed, I left my job to focus
on homeschooling my grandchildren for six months. After the first COVID wave, I started working at the Native Friendship Center in a new program called K2 Street patrol, which works closely with the SPVM. We worked collaboratively, and part of my role helped educate police in Montreal on urban, indigenous realities. In July 2020, I started to work at PAQ as the new Safe Start Coordinator, providing referrals and accompaniment to newly-arrived Indigenous people in Montreal for six months. In November 2021, I returned to PAQ as the new Community Health Coordinator working on a pilot project with the CHUM hospital to provide Indigenous peoples access to holistic and culturally adapted physical and psychological health services. I genuinely believe that if you are not happy in your job, you need to change it because you will do more harm if you stay. This wellness philosophy has guided me in the work I have chosen to do.
PROGRAMS 17