This year, for the first time in 36 years, the Rural Providers Conference is coming to Anchorage during the week of July 8th at the Alaska Pacific University campus.
Since the conference will be accessible to a wider audience this year and next year, I invited Doug and Amy on Frontiers to talk about how the RPC uses Native culture and traditions to help communities find recovery.
“We don’t have any experts around. All we have is each other,” Doug says. “Just another Native. Native to Native, we can help each other.”
Organizers say it’s misleading to call this annual event a conference, because it’s not a conference in the Western sense but really more of a gathering — which began as a way for counselors and others on the front lines of fighting addiction in Rural Alaska to support each other. Over the years, those struggling with sobriety were welcomed into the fold – and today the RPC has evolved into a community self-help program.
Read more here.