Tanya Sayer struggled with addictions for twenty years, but now, after turning her life around, she is sharing her story of healing through a ribbon skirt demonstration at the Canadian Western Agribition’s Indigenous Pavilion.
For Sayer, it started at just 11 years old. Her father had attended residential schools, and she said much of her childhood living at home was filled with violence, alcoholism and abandonment. She chose to live on the streets, which seemed the better option.
“I went from smoking a cigarette to becoming a full-blown IV drug user, so I was injecting the morphine, the crystal meth,” she said.
Over the next two decades, life carried her to Vancouver’s East Hastings, Edmonton, Prince Albert and Regina’s North Central.
It was when she entered Regina’s Drug Treatment Court that she began to turn her life around.
“It was through that program that gave me safety, that provided a safe place to stay.”
Now she was grateful to be able to share her story through a ribbon skirt demonstration at the Canadian Western Agribition’s Indigenous Pavilion, and how she found healing through culture and ceremony.
Sayer is now a visual arts instructor at the University of Regina’s Conservatory of Performing Arts, where she teaches others how to make ribbon skirts.
“Culture does save lives and there is a way, there is hope out there,” she said, hoping others find the same healing she did.
