Back in June, I hosted the Open Space part of a conference on reconciliation policy and practice co-sponsored by Queens University, the First Nations Technical Institute and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The harvest from that gathering is now online as an article about the event in Canadian Government Executive Magazine It makes for some interesting reading.
Prince George, BC Four years ago less a month I was running a huge Open Space event here in Prince George, in fact in the building that right outside my hotel room window. Called “Seeds of Change” the event was a kick off for the urban Aboriginal Strategy, a community driven and led process intended to begin and seed projects that would make a difference in the lives of the urban Aboriginal community in this northern city of 80,000 people. One of the participants at that event was Ben Berland, who was at the time working with the Prince …
The Province of British Columbia runs an amazing Aboriginal Youth Internship progra. The program takes young ABoriginal people (under 30) and places them in a 12 month program featuring nine months of working within the provincial government and three months of working with Aboriginal organizations and governments. The chief architect and steward of this program is Sasha Hobbs, who is sitting next to me in a fog bound Vancouver harbour. She is working with another friend of mine, the amazing Priscilla Sabbas, and together they are working with 25 amazing young people in their second year of …
I first saw Van Jones speak at the Pegasus conference last year, and I know of his work through some of the people I have been working with in the Food and Society network. Here is an article summing up his thoughts on a New Green Deal, which brings social and economic justice together. Having done some work this past week setting up a national network of urban Aboriginal economic development practiitoners and thinkers, I think what Van is pointing to here has immediate relevence for Canada as well: To change our laws and culture, the green movement …
Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission launches today (hooray that my friend Jane Morley was named as one of the commissioners last week!) and I’m here at Queen’s University in Kingston to run an Open Space as part of a conference of academics, policy makers and public servants from First Nations and non-Aboriginal governments and institutions on the topic. In Canada, the process that is being embarked upon today is spurred by the residential school experience. The main brief of the TRC will be to write the history of that 150 year period in Canadian history when residential school did huge …