Indigenous Allyship

2022

Indigenous Canada- FCG Network Study Group

“We say where the sacred spirit, kîsikâw’pîsim, comes up, it makes a light and then it goes down over here. That light it makes, we call that event, kîsikâw…and it's a spirit, a spiritual event... And so..the vulgar translation is daytime... But our interpretation is that it is an event which is a time for spirit… What we do is, we observe this life with this apparatus, one of the seven holes in our head. We call this, miskîsik…And, it's a tool to help me to observe the spirit. The spiritual event.” – Reuben Quinn, Program Coordinator at Centre for Race & Culture.

FCG is committed to participating in the TRCA Calls to Action Education for Reconciliation. This year, as part of our reconciliACTION, we have started hosting a bi-weekly discussion group for Indigenous Canada, an online course that is offered by the University of Alberta. 

The course itself is divided into 12 modules, the first module beginning with historical Indigenous worldviews, and the significance of stories and storytelling in Indigenous societies.

Over the next few months and ending in July, we will be learning together about Indigenous and settler perspectives of treaty making, the variation of treaties in Canada and how they came about. We will examine Indigenous legal traditions and the ways in which the Indian Act contributed to assimilation.

Our group will become familiar with the characteristics of teaching and learning in Indigenous communities (relationships were fundamental). We will be digging deeper into the development and implementation of the Residential school system in the period after Confederation, and we will be learning about the intergenerational impact of the Residential school system and the creation of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

Other significant areas of learning and discussion covered by the modules include information on the sovereignty of lands, Aboriginal title, and rights to land. We will learn about current and on-going threats to Indigenous lands and how these threats and challenges are being addressed as well as Indigenous traditional ecological knowledge.

There is a module dedicated to Indigenous women that explores the concepts of gender, and the traditional roles and responsibilities, and underlines how colonization can be characterized as a gendered project, giving examples of the impact of colonialism on Indigenous women.

We will get into the mindset of Indigenous societies concerning what community means and look at answers to how Indigenous people form communities, traditionally and today. This module will demonstrate how social and environmental activism can mobilize and create communities; it also points to key moments that include the Oka Crisis, Idle No More and Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls–grassroots resistance movements.

Throughout the course, our group will be gaining a deeper understanding of the impact of historical and ongoing colonialism on Indigenous societies as well as learning more about past and current Indigenous resistance and leadership and exploring concepts that include self-government, self-determination, and Indigenous resurgence.

Hosted in a space of mutual respect, our meetings are conducted in a spirit of open-mindedness and true inquiry and we will be sharing our learnings on our social media platforms, to engage even more of our followers in this critical moment in time.

2021

Maamawi Revisited

2019

Waterloo Story Telling Project 

2018

In 2018, we assisted in bringing performances of The Chemical Valley Project to various locations.

2017

In September 2017, Faith & the Common Good continued its work on allyship as an organizing partner in the first annual Great Lakes Water Walk.

2016

Our 2016 annual forum focused on bridging two areas that are deeply important to our members — reconciliation with First Peoples and climate justice. Many in our interfaith network want to work more closely with First Nations communities on local climate issues, but aren’t sure how to go about it. This forum (and its action oriented follow-up work) was designed to create connections to support one another in the challenge of caring for our natural environment and what Indigenous allyship would mean. The forum was held in Waterloo, Ontario and hosted by Faith & the Common Good, Divest Waterloo, the Green Awakening Network  and the Centre for Public Ethics at Waterloo Lutheran Seminary, with funding support from the Justice and Reconciliation Fund of the United Church of Canada.

We need to return to the original relationships. That was the repeated message heard at the forum. These relationships involve taking care of Mother Earth in tandem with revisiting the cordial, peaceful beginnings of our settlers’ and first peoples’ interactions.

Read Indigenous Allyship is about relationships.

Click here for the full conference video, which includes bookmarks to direct you to individual speakers (under SHOW MORE).