CARLA ROBINSON

Carla Robinson is a Canadian broadcast journalist and television host. Her goal as a storyteller has always been to enlighten, inspire, and bring the stories of Indigenous people to a diverse audience. Tapping into her years of experience working in the mainstream media, Carla is currently launching her own production company: Carla Robinson Media Productions. She is also the host of a new biography program called All Our Relations, that will air this year on the Aboriginal People’s Television Network. She is from the Haisla and Heiltsuk Nations in Northern BC

 

 

Who was your inspiration growing up?

 

I used to watch the news with my dad and I saw a Native reporter doing a news report next to a river. He had a very professional voice and I remember being so impressed by him. That was the first time I thought, Wow, I can be a news reporter!

 

Were there any issues you dealt with as a young person that you see young people dealing with today?

 

When I was young there weren’t a lot of programs to keep me busy and on track. When I was 15 or 16 I created a youth group to find healthy and fun things to do. We played basketball and that helped me a lot. One issue I still see our youth dealing with today, and something that we all dealt with as Aboriginal youth growing up is dealing with low expectations placed on us by the people around us. When people have low expectations of you, you fill those expectations.

Our youth group would get time at the community rec centre, and this time was great for all of us to just have fun.I remember being at a crime prevention workshop in my community and some of the adults were saying publiclythat we were all juvenile delinquents. I told them, “You have such low expectations of us! If you tell us we’re juvenile delinquents, we will be the best delinquents and we will meet your low expectations; but if you raise your expectations of us we will meet those high expectations.”

Later when I returned to my community as an adult, a youth centre had been created with youth workers that provided gym time and support for the youth in the community. Most importantly, we need to have high expectations of our youth. Things are getting better though. When I was in school, there were only one or two people who made the honour roll. Now we have rows of them! Our youth today are very motivated to do great things.

 

 

 

 

 

What is the role of a leader in the community?

 

The role of a leader is to first listen, and see where they’re needed as well as how they can help. We can all be leaders— different types of leaders. Someone may have organizational skills or planning skills that can be helpful for being a leader. Even if they might not have time, they can still be a leader by donating money for non-profits. We should all do what we can, where we can to help out. We are all so busy, but we need to see where we can make a difference.

 

What role should our traditions and cultures have in the lives of our first nations youth, both in a rural and urban setting?

 

Our traditions and culture can teach us to have an appreciation for the spirit world and a connection to our ancestors, as well as make us grounded. We must fill up our spiritual cups; when our cups are full, feelings of loneliness, shame, or sadness can’t bring us down. When you do ceremony, smudging, winter solstice, summer solstice, and even prayers, those things fill

up your cup and make you feel strong in life. We need this pillar, whether in a city or a reserve. Our traditional knowledge is so important, because when we know our history and our knowledge, we discover how special it is. Think of the sports we have contributed, like lacrosse. It’s important we learn how to be resourceful, how to work with the environment, howto work as a group, how to adapt into our community, how important it is to grow and adapt.

 

What advice would you give to young journalists and potential leaders in the communities?

 

For young people, don’t be afraid to take the time tolisten to your spirit, so you know what you want and not anyone else’s spirit. Don’t be afraid to give it all your energy. When I was young I knew what I wanted and later I wanted something else. When you follow your spirit, things will fall into place more easily. It’s not always easy though. When the going gets hard and something gets in your way, you haveto plow through it. The universe might be saying not to doit, but if you just plow through you can overcome these obstacles. Because maybe the universe wants us to face these challenges and learn to overcome them. This might be more important—to test us.

 

If you had one message to send to the aboriginal community, what would it be?

 

One message I would send to our people is, we are in a very powerful time. And it’s more important than ever that we be as healthy and as strong as we can be as a community and individuals. We need to be strong minded as one to protect our Mother Earth. We need to have healthy lifestyles and one way is through sport. By playing sports together as a team we can become clear-headed and have clear hearts.

It’s so good that our young people are getting educated.So much of our knowledge is adapting and whipping up something new. Our culture was always adopting new methods; it is flowing and organic. I’m excited for the future because I see the existing silo mentality being broken down that for example, keeps ministries separated. It’s exciting

to see the level of experimentation even in music by those artists that we know had Native American backgrounds, such as Jimmy Hendrix and Elvis Presley, who couldn’t help but experiment with their music.