Our Elders & Beloved Colleagues

Ann Maje Raider was born in Ross River, Yukon, into the traditional Kaska family of Pete and Lena Charlie. She completed her high school education in Whitehorse, Yukon and has pursued post-secondary education in accounting, management, group facilitation and community development that included counseling skills, dealing with family violence, suicide prevention and intervention and strength-based approaches to planning and development.

Ann Maje Raider was the first democratically elected Chief of the Liard First Nation. She served in office from 1992-1998. During her tenure in office she carried out the community’s voice and focused on its priorities, priorities such as community development, healing, and wellness. Ann also initiated and implemented programs for furthering the education, training and employment of Liard’s citizens. Under her leadership Liard First Nation has concluded joint ventures with private sector operations in the areas of forestry development, construction, major project development, engineering & surveying, catering, janitorial services and fuel supplies.

In 1999 along with other passionate Kaska women organized the Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society (LAWS) to implement a comprehensive healing strategy to address the physical and sexual abuse of the residential schools. Through LAWS Ann has designed and managed different projects that not only put the events of residential school into a perspective that allows for the healing process to begin, but also addressed the healing that is needed for those individuals who were victims of family violence or unhealthy and toxic circumstances.

Ann is currently the Executive Director of Liard Aboriginal Women’s Society.

Gūmōmǎ’ ní’ kā ts’įh lāgiht’ā - Dene ā nezen

“Our mothers land"

I graduated as a psychiatric nurse at the end of the Asylum model of mental health care in 1969. During psychiatry residency in 1978, I went to World Health Organization to study Public Health, the belief that communal resources are stronger than adversity. I also met the Milan Systemic Family Therapy approach at that time, a practical tool to understand context, where users of therapy are the experts of their own lives. From 1980, as a Calgary psychiatrist, I practiced not just healthcare, but also wellness initiatives like starting a water polo club or participating in a pastors’ support group.

In 1983 we moved to Cowichan. I was aware of human adversity like serious illness, poverty, racism, diversity, and violence itself, but acknowledged more the potential of coping, human spirit, and relationship organization, community, over adversity. Indigenous spiritualities have guided and supported this increasing awareness.

Over the last 40-some years, besides being a general all-purpose clinical psychiatrist usually on-call, I focused on enhancing communal health resources. These include the culture of mental health services, Providence Farm, CMHA, health authorities, UBC and University of Calgary medical education, Doctors of BC, Mood clinic, Our Cowichan, the emergence of the Orcas Society from Nemo, and University of Victoria discourse research.

Many teachers and learners have come to Cowichan to participate in these shared activities.

I was a member of the three-person Fifth Province Associates Group in Dublin, Ireland from 1981 until 1996 and had many magical experiences as I travelled through 20 countries introducing a novel systemic approach (Fifth Province Approach) in cases of poverty, physical and sexualised abuse. This work has also been translated into 9 languages. 1999 brought a spiritual teacher, Sri Vasudeva, into my life along with the development of a meditation community which I have led weekly and in retreats.

During the 1970s and 1980s I had the privilege of being one of the co-founders of the Family Therapy Association of Ireland and the first FT training programme in Ireland. I have been on the editorial boards of major international systemic therapy journals in Ireland, USA, UK and Australia and co-edited two international books with Carmel Flaskas and Jim Sheehan, ‘Hope and Despair in Narrative and Family Therapy’ (2007) and with Gail Simon, Systemic Therapy as Transformative Practice (2017).

I retired from 30 years teaching in Social Science at University College Dublin and initiated their first PhD programme in Families and Systemic Therapies there in 1993. My 2001 paper was cited by the Journal of Family Therapy (UK) and Family Process (USA) was one of the 24 most influential articles on Social Justice and Diversity in the last 40 years.

Angela Hartwig was the chief executive of the Women’s Council for Domestic and Family Violence Services Western Australia for more than 25 years.

She began her vocation working in a women’s refuge when she was in her mid-twenties and had a long and distinguished career campaigning for social justice and addressing domestic and family violence.

Angela’s advocacy and academic work were instrumental in the development and implementation of the Safe at Home program. An initiative which helps women and children to safely stay in their own homes after separation from their abuser, while maintaining access to support networks, workplaces, and schools.

She worked closely with the Government on key initiatives including systemic changes to the State’s Women’s Refuge Framework and ‘Path to safety’ – Western Australia’s strategy to reduce family and domestic violence 2020-2030.

Public honours included induction into the WA Women’s Hall of Fame, life membership of the WA branch of the Australian Services Union and an innovation award for the development of the Safe at Home program.