Photo courtesy Justice for Justice Society

By Erika Rolling

Justice for Justice

3rd Annual Opioid Awareness walk in Horse Lake on Wednesday

Aug 27, 2022 | 2:34 PM

For the third year in a row, the Horse Lake First Nation is inviting those who have been affected by opioid use or want to show their support at the 3rd Annual Opioid Awareness Walk on August 31, 2022.

After tragically losing her sister Justice Kent to an opiate overdose in 2020, Mercedes Mwemera decided to start raising awareness on the misuse of opiates in her community and tools on how to prevent deaths from using.

“At first I was super angry… but instead of getting upset and turning towards unhealthy habits like drugs and alcohol, I used it to create a society and bring awareness to not only Horse Lake, but other places and Indigenous reserves in hopes of some type of change,” Mwemeda says.

She says reserves don’t usually have great access to services they would benefit from like safe injection sites and on-site counseling.

The reason why it is continuing is because she hasn’t seen a big change. “We are getting a youth treatment centre built out there, but within the community itself… there’s still a lot of things that need to be changed.”

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Mwemera notes there has recently been a good step in the right direction in the community with police cracking down on drugs and dealers, but doesn’t want the younger and future generations following in less than ideal footsteps.

“Not learning behaviors and thinking that drugs and alcohol are the way to go, but to get up and try to connect with our culture and find out who we really are.”

“I think us as people, especially Indigenous people…there’s a reason we are going that way because we don’t have a sense of belonging, we don’t have an understanding of who we are because we’ve lost our culture, and not understanding how to cope.”

The Justice for Justice Society was created as a reminder to community Mwemera says.

“We are continuing to lose people to opioids… and they’re forgotten in a way where we don’t understand how to talk about them and how their life was before. I find when people speak about it, they shut me down. No memory should be shut out, regardless of how you lost your life.”

The walk will be at the Horse Lake First Nation Multiplex and will start at 5:00 p.m. There will be traditional dancers performing and an Elder will pray. Following the walk, there will be a round dance and Naloxone kit training demonstrations.

Mwemera said there will be a memory box made for those who have lost their lives to opioids.

She also highly encourages if you are attending the walk and are wanting to remember a loved one to bring of picture of them to be put in the memory box.