What it Takes to Get Equal Health and Education on First Nations Reserves

In a Facebook video posted last November, Danna Henderson makes a tearful plea to parents as she watches her young daughter Dānnalee dance and sing alongside other children at a restaurant. Her daughter is the only one in the crowd using a walker to stand.

"Our children lead by example… Tonight is one of those moments where people were rude to my daughter and it hurts," says Henderson as she talks into the camera, beginning to cry. "And it's not a nice thing to go through, to have my daughter look so hurt at things being said to her. I just wanted to tell you that as a parent, please try to promote inclusion."

Dānnalee is only five years old and inclusion is not the only thing she's been fighting for in her short life. Dānnalee was born with Spina Bifida, a birth defect that affects her ability to walk. She wears a shunt, a catheter that must be changed four times a day, and suffers from seizures. But that hasn't stopped the young girl from progressing from a wheelchair, to a walker, to now using crutches to help her walk.

"I'm just amazed. She has a lot of determination and perseverance that I don't know where she gets it from. But she is determined to be like any other child. And that's the greatest thing," Henderson told VICE.

Henderson lives on Pasqua First Nation with Dānnalee and her other two children, aged four and one. For the past few years she has been tirelessly fighting with Pasqua First Nation and Indigenous Affairs to get both information and access to funding and programs she needs to get an education. Services like access to a driver to get Dānnalee to and from school, or a school nurse to change her catheter. Because Dānnalee has also been diagnosed with a learning disability, she requires an educational assistant.

Henderson says Pasqua First Nation had neither a driver, EA, or nurse to equipped to help Dānnalee—nor the insurance to cover if something happened to her—so she drives her daughter to the nearest town every second day so she can go to school.

"It was based on staff qualifications," Henderson said. "There was no staff qualified to deal with her."

Henderson's SUV isn't equipped to accommodate her wheelchair and with Dānnalee's growth spurts—taking her around can be time consuming and physically demanding.

"It's just because she's on a reserve and she's status," she told VICE. "Mind you, if she was non-status living on the reserve the province would go on the reserve and pick her up. It's kind of mind boggling. Oh, because she's First Nations, she doesn't fit that bill."

For more than a decade, Cindy Blackstock and the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society have argued that the lack of education and health resources on reserves, coupled with the in-fighting over who funds those programs, amounts to racial discrimination against children—a system Blackstock has called "separate and unequal." Last year, a federal court judge agreed.

Read More: Charged With Racial Discrimination, Canada's Government Fought Dirty and Lost

Henderson and her husband are committed to making sure their daughter gets the same education and health care as she would off-reserve, which has meant constant fighting with Indigenous Affairs over "jurisdiction." Henderson has made it her life's work to get to the bottom of which governments and agencies are responsible for ensuring her daughter gets comparable health and education, so that other on-reserve parents won't have to go through the same thing.

"I kind of feel like I'm in a bind. My husband decided he's not going to work and he's going to take over the duties while I go to work. We don't mind taking her—but it's the principle of her not getting that service."

Pasqua First Nation Chief Todd Peigan told VICE the band has committed to getting Dānnalee the supports she qualifies for by this fall. Henderson says this comes after months of emails and letters going back and forth between Indigenous Affairs, Pasqua First Nation, and herself. In the emails, Henderson says it's evident that people are "passing the buck" and not taking responsibility for vulnerable children like Dānnalee.

"It's mostly frustration because I'm constantly on the phone and I'm trying to get answers. I've learned how to navigate the different levels of government from the province, to the reserve, to Indian Affairs. So now when I have issues, I go to Indian Affairs and they really can't help. 'It's up to your reserve,' and the reserve says, 'Oh, we don't have any money.' Or lately what they've been saying is: 'We're working on it,'" said Henderson.

The Canadian government has been under fire for only spending "a fraction of money" dedicated towards helping children like Dānnalee. Last month Blackstock said the government is shortchanging First Nations children on-reserve and in foster care.

Henderson is a registered nurse, has a journalistic background and is activist in her own right, having traveled to Standing Rock and taken up other Indigenous rights causes. She is vocal about her daughter's case, knows how to be an advocate, and ask questions in the health industry. She says she sees other parents struggling like she is, but often don't know the questions to ask or may not be well-versed in how to navigate the systems which Blackstock called "racially discriminatory" to children like her daughter.

"I worry for those children that are literally falling through the cracks because… their parents don't know what recourse to take," said Henderson. "I had to learn all on my own."

Lead image of Henderson and her three children via Facebook.

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