Indigenous Women's Symposium!
We gave our first ever presentation in a workshop format at the Indigenous Women's Symposium at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario on February 10th, 2018.
We were excited to be mentioned for the first time in a Windspeaker news article on January 25th, 2018! We have reproduced that portion below from the full article that can be found here!
Strong focus on identity issues for upcoming Indigenous Women’s Symposium
Thursday, January 25th, 2018
"The workshops and presentations will range from academic to grassroots-based. One of the presentations on the youth programming agenda will be from three girls from Attawapiskat, Ont. and their mother, co-founders of Young Warriors of Turtle Island. They will speak to the impact of residential schools, First Nation youth suicide, children in care removed from their communities, the disparity of education funding, and missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. They have developed a tool to guide young people’s reconnection to their histories, cultures, languages, communities, Elders and other First Nation experts.
Schuitemaker said it’s heartbreaking that children of such a young age—the oldest of the girls is 13—would have to deal with such weighty concerns, but it’s also powerful that young people are aware and prepared to work to make important changes in their own lives and the lives of others."
(*we are from Moosonee, Ontario and we are members of Attawapiskat First Nation)
We were excited and honoured that the Symposium organizers allowed us to present especially because we are still kids.
We had to take a 5 hour train ride from home to Cochrane, Ontario then drive to Peterborough from there. It was a long journey to get to the University.
When we got there, we had to register as presenters. Here is a picture of us as we were registering and after we got our presenter passes.
We had some time before our presentation so we were able to attend a presentation on the return of midwifery specifically in our area. This was great because Neegahnii was thinking about becoming a midwife. We also discovered that the presenter was the daughter of a grade school friend of mom's.
After our presentation, we sat in on the keynote speech given by Rebecca Thomas on Indian identity politics. This is a link to an article about her presentation.
After Rebecca Thomas' presentation, we attended a workshop on Activism Through Fashion Design. This was interesting because we all come from families that have someone who can do our traditional crafts and arts. We are also learning our beadwork, mitt & slipper making; Neegahnii had been interested in fashion design at one time and Mattinaway is an artist who loves to 'create'.
For our presentation, we told our audience about how we have been home schooled all our lives and how and why we created Young Warriors. Our mother spent our lives always searching for materials that were relevant to us as First Nations’ kids. We didn’t want other First Nations’ people to experience the same thing. We also found that the way you are expected to learn in mainstream society didn’t fit with the way we were being raised. So our materials are our attempt to help fix all of that for other First Nation kids.
We know there is great value in the knowledge we have as First Nations’ people, a value that at best, doesn’t translate well in the way ordinary curriculum is written (if it is ever there at all), and at worst, portrays our ways as inferior or as a novelty.
Just like Canadian kids get to learn every day all day about themselves and "Canadian" ways and subjects in school, we need to know where we come from. We need to learn about our histories and traditions and the knowledge we have in all areas – language, science, ceremonies, astronomy, storytelling, values, dance, art, history, race relations, the law as it affects us and our own legal rights, trapping, fishing, hunting, our territories, geography... and the list goes on. That is only fair. Young Warriors lets every warrior do this in their own First Nation’s way, in subject areas they are personally interested in.
We felt our workshop went well. Everyone in our audience was very nice. We gave everyone a Cree syllabic chart and helped them learn how to write their names. We also gave everyone a sample worksheet about the dream catcher because we thought everyone would be familiar with the dream catcher.
This was a great experience and we hope we have opportunities like this again soon! Thank you very much to all the organizers of the Indigenous Women's Symposium.
Senator Murray Sinclair's Presentation to the Senate's Aboriginal Peoples' Standing Committee
On February 14th, 2018, the girls attended Senator Murray Sinclair's presentation to the Senate's Aboriginal Peoples' Standing Committee at Parliament Hill. Senator Sinclair presented with Dr. Wilson as previous Commissioners of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Neegahnii & Danasco sat behind Senator Sinclair as he spoke and later saw themselves on tv (which was unexpected)!
"Canadian society has built institutions around the concept of superiority; of European institutions, European societies, European belief systems and the inferiority of indigenous people. And to some extent indigenous people have inherited that mythology. So we had to attack that, address it right at the beginning, we spent a lot of time doing that. That's why one of the most important things I think we say in our report, and said in the course of our presentations when we were talking to survivors and the public, was 'education is the key' to reconciliation because if we can start to talk to children in society about how to talk to each other, and about each other, with more respect and understand this history but also understand the society they are growing up in a better way; they will be the engines of change in the future. And that's also why we say reconciliation is going to take a long time. Because those generations have to be allowed to grow up and be re-educated, or be educated, and take over the reins of power eventually.
And the people who are now in positions of power we still have to talk to them, we still have to show them our report, the facts and show them how things are going wrong and try to persuade that change but that's going to take longer there because they're used to succeeding in the environment that exists today". - Senator Sinclair, February 14th, 2018; presentation to the Senate's Aboriginal Peoples' Standing Committee
It was good for us to hear Senator Sinclair's presentation. I believe it assured my girls that the impact they hope their Young Warriors program will have is definitely a strong likelihood (and much needed).
The girls met Senator Sinclair after his presentation. He reminded them about a project he helped them with many years ago.
He was also one of the first to show his support for the program they created so it was great that they finally got to meet him in person.
The girls had an excellent time although the presentation started at night (they were all quite tired :) ). The message we heard loud and clear was that Young Warriors of Turtle Island will help tear down the false mythology Senator Sinclair spoke about, by focusing on the innumerable positives and benefits of our own cultures to strengthen our own knowledge base while building strong children and communities and celebrating the successes of our youth and people in general.
I am sure my girls have many successes and good things to look forward to!
Flat Neegahnii, Danasco & Mattinaway 2009
Have a Heart Rally
Neegahnii, Danasco & Mattinaway attended the "Have a Heart" Rally on Parliament Hill on February 15th, 2018.
The "Have a Heart" rally is an annual event designed to create awareness about education issues (and others) in First Nation communities. Please click on this link to learn more about it and to find some resources you can use! Have a Heart
Many Ottawa school students were present for the rally and read letters they wrote to the Prime Minister about issues such as clean water and equal education. We also saw a performance by 2 young Inuit throat singers.
One student held a sign with "Shannen's Dream is Our Destiny" on it. Shannen was a relative of ours. Every time we tried to get a picture of the sign, the wind would blow and turn it away from us. It would have been interesting to ask the students what they believe "Shannen's Dream is Our Destiny" means.
Unfortunately, we left before it was quite over because we had to drive to Timmins Ontario and were hoping to be as close as possible to Timmins before dark.
It was good for the girls to see that there are young people out there who are growing up with at least a little knowledge about some of the issues faced by First Nations' children in Canada.
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