Maggie Hodgson definitely gets my vote for The Hope Lady Award. She talks about aboriginal people in a manner that can only make them proud of themselves, only make them want to be more like the people she has noticed. Some information from her bio is quoted below. At the end is the address of the website where you can hear her interview aired Feb. 23 2007 on CBC Radio’s The Current. You cannot help but believe things could change when you hear her speak.
The Honourable Dr. Maggie Hodgson, Health Services
Maggie Hodgson is the Founder and Executive Director of the Nechi Institute on Alcohol and Drug Education, an adult addictions counselor training and research
centre. She has worked in the area of addictions for twenty years, and on suicide prevention, sexual abuse, residential schools, family violence, communications,
gambling addictions, Aboriginal inmate aftercare, and mental health. Dr. Hodgson is responsible for the creation of the Angus Campbell Detoxification
Centre; the Community Action Society that advocates on behalf of welfare recipients; the 1320 Car Club; the Moose Jaw Friendship Centre; and Moose Jaw
Transition House for battered women. She was the driving force behind the National Addictions Awareness Week, which now boasts 700,000 participants annually;
the First World Addictions Conference in 1992 that drew 3,200 Aboriginal people from around the world. When Ovid Mercredi went to Davis Inlet during the
1993 crisis, he chose Dr. Hodgson to accompany him due to her expertise. She sits on many boards and committees including: The Royal Commission on Aboriginal
Issues; the Edmonton Social Planning Council; the Canada Drug Strategy; the Minister of Health’s Committee on Native Suicide; and Corrections Canada’s
Substance Abuse Task Force. Dr. Hodgson graduated with a Grade 12 education, received an Honourary Doctorate of Laws from the University of Alberta, and
has taken numerous courses over the years to become one of the Aboriginal community’s leading health care workers, trainers, organizers and advocates.
She is married with three children, and lives in Edmonton.
http://www.cbc.ca/thecurrent/2007/200702/20070223.html
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