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Ruth Scalp Lock

Ruth Scalp Lock is from the Siksika Nation located in southern Alberta, Canada. Ruth Scalp Lock is a residential school survivor who overcame fourteen years of experiencing the dark history of the Canadian Residential School system at the age of six-years-old. Ruth went back to her traditional roots, the way her father raised her. On March 14, 1974 Ruth changed her life by sobriety and healing which became over 40 years of dedicating her life to helping her community members and urban Indigenous families in Calgary, Alberta. Ruth Scalp Lock was one of the first Indigenous women in southern Alberta that made a connection between Indigenous families and social workers by establishing trust and concern by working with the families in order to keep the family circle strong.

Awo Taan Native Healing Lodge

In 1986 Ruth Scalp Lock came together with a group of compassionate people to make a safe place for Indigenous women and children escaping from abuse and in need of shelter. The name Awo Taan mean’s shield which was giving to Margaret Bad Boy and her husband at a Sundance back in 1930. In a ceremonial gathering, Margaret Bad boy gave Ruth Scalp Lock the name Awo Taanaakii (Shield Women). It was a name that symbolizes Ruth as a protector to protect these women and children. It was Ruth Scalp Lock’s dream to open a Native Women’s Shelter in Calgary which took many years to establish with the support of Mayor Alder, Ralph Kline and many other committee members to find a location and later then in 2007 Ruth Scalp Lock gave the name Awo Tann Healing Lodge. The Awo Taan Healing Lodge is a shelter that is uniquely designed for Indigenous Families because of its traditional and spiritual healing, which also consists of the medicine wheel, speaking with Elder’s, and smudging.

My Name is Shield Women

My Name is Shield Woman is a self-published memoir she co-wrote with fellow social worker Jim Pritchard. It tells her story from a terrified six-year-old girl going into the abusive residential school she attended for 14 years near Calgary, to her battles with alcoholism and the near-decade process to establish Awo Taan, the first traditional aboriginal women’s healing shelter in the city that is now over 20 years old.