By Aaron Schulze

‘The horse is the teacher’: Group empowering women and children with horses

Sep 19, 2018 | 4:56 PM

A program in the Northeast aims to empower women and children through the relationships with horses.

Although this program isn’t about teaching participants how to ride horses. In fact, they don’t ride the horses at all.

Shannon Dickey and Barbie Harder are facilitators who run Empower U Equine, an assisted learning program outside Nipawin which helps those who join develop life skills by personal interactions with horses — face to face, and on the ground.

“We aren’t a program that’s necessarily targeting horse people,” Dickey told northeastNOW. “We’re targeting people in general to teach life skills. People come to us, we guide them through a series of exercises, they’re then partnered with a horse, and in our program the horse is the teacher and we’re the facilitators.

“We want them (the horses) to be able to react and move to give those teaching opportunities,” Harder said. “If we were to ride the horses we are then in control of the horse. On the ground the teachers are then free to teach us.”

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The idea for Empower U Equine came after Dickey and Harder heard of Equine Connection, an equine assisted learning and skills development course in Strathmore, Alberta. They both attended and became certified facilitators in March 2018.

Empower U Equine has 12 objectives including communication, trust, leadership, and teamwork that some women may be struggling with.

Dickey said the reason Empower U Equine uses horses as their animals of choice to build on life skills is the sheer idea of working with a 1,200-pound horse can increase self confidence.

“Horses are also non-judgmental,” Dickey said. “They don’t care if you’re rich or poor, big or small, president of a company or unemployed, or any of those things. All they care about is if you’re a leader.”

The self-confidence workshops can also help those escaping or recovering from domestic violence situations according to the organizers. 

They contacted North East Outreach and Support Services (NEOSS) with a free registration for someone escaping domestic violence who they feel would benefit from it.

“We want to let women in the Northeast and Saskatchewan in general they’re here to help them move forward,” Dickey said. “Even if it’s just taking them out of their everyday environment which may not be so great at the time and bringing them here and partnering with a horse that they’re capable of leading.”

The process isn’t always easy. Dickey said they give the women and children journals to write in. At the start of the teachings they find people who admit they don’t want to be there.

What makes the journey rewarding for Dickey and Harder is the moments of character building and progression the women and children create on their own with the horses.

“When they leave that day we want them to feel like they can take on the world,” Dickey said. “We believe we can do that working with our horses.”

aaron.schulze@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @SchulzePANow