Shae Wale, Health Educator
Shae Wale is Gitxsan from Gitanmaax First Nation as well as Cree-Métis. She is highly motivated and passionate about supporting the health and wellbeing of Indigenous people. Its important for her to feel like she is making a difference in helping Indigenous people to thrive. Shae believes that everyone deserves access to information and support so they can choose the health journey that is best for them.
Shae graduated from the University of Victoria (UVIC) with a Bachelor of Kinesiology with honors. In the past, Shae has worked as an Indigenous Youth Intern at the Ministry of Health, and the Indigenous Sport, Physical activity and Recreation Council (ISPARC), and a Policy Analyst for the Province of BC.
Shae is currently working as a Respecting Tobacco Consultant at the First Nations Health Authority. In this role, she presents to the public about commercial tobacco cessation, cannabis public education and about traditional tobacco use for wellness. She also creates resources, videos and pamphlets to share information, keeps track of new research and best practices on tobacco cessation and cannabis public education, and manages contracts to provide tobacco cessation counselling services to Indigenous people in BC. What she most enjoys about her job is teaching youth about tobacco and cannabis. She loves their questions, curiosity and unique perspectives.
Her proudest accomplishment was being a writer on the FNHA “With Open Arms: Supportive Conversations Among Friends” toolkit to support youth and young adults to access information and learn conversation skills to talk about substance use, harm reduction and wellness. She was privileged to work closely with a youth committee made up of young First Nations people to write the toolkit, create videos and design the website for the project.
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