We are dedicated to offering a culturally safe environment where our education programming prioritizes inclusive, accessible, holistic, and family-centered values. We are rooted in Indigenous knowledge systems and center on a re-connection with land-based practices. Through colonization and systematic displacement and policies, Indigenous Peoples have and continue to be violently removed from their traditional homelands.
Indigenous Peoples knowledge systems, theories and ways of understanding and walking in the world were developed, maintained and transferred from one generation to the next orally and in relation to one another. Our sense of identity and being is deeply rooted in our connection to Mother Earth and being able to gather in community on the back of Mother Earth.
This season, we offered Indigenous youth, Elders, and surrounding community members to gather, learn and share in Indigenous farming practices, ancestral food harvesting, food processing and feasting of ancestral foods.
Some of our land-based programming included:
- Travelling to Tk’emlúps te Secwe̓pemc Territory, where a bison ceremony was held. Through Inter-Tribal collaborations, knowledge was shared on how to harvest, process and prepare bison meat and hide tanning preparations. Bison from the harvest was gifted in our community-food baskets.
- Travelling to Secwepemc territory and visiting the Cwelcwelt Kuc “We are Well” Garden. We cross-pollinated Inter-Tribal knowledge systems around Indigenous Food Sovereignty and how we can strengthen, support and elevate an Inter-Tribal Foodways Corridor. We camped, went on medicine walks, picked Saskatoon berries and other plant medicines. Community members also got to help in garden maintenance and harvested vegetables that were later shared in other programming and community feast gatherings.
- Elder Martin Sparrow is a Commercial Musqueam Fisherman, Master-Carver and storyteller from the Musqueam First Nation. His partner Shona Sparrow is an entrepreneur, Cultural knowledge keeper, and Elder helper from the Syilx Okanagan Nation Alliance. Together they hosted a group of community members in Musqueam Territory where they shared stories and knowledge around Indigenous Food Sovereignty and the importance of creating and having access to culturally safe spaces. Participants got to experience hands-on opportunities to learn how to smoke and process Salmon in a traditional smoke house.
- Leona Brown, a Gitxsan and Nisga'a Mother of Three, facilitated a plant walk with a group of our community participants in Katzie First Nation Territory. Community members got to learn about the cultural and medicinal uses of our plant relation, Devil's Club. Leona also shared how to identify, harvest, and process the plant.