2021 Indigenous
Youth and Community Futures Fund Project Descriptions

 

Name of Organization: Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte

Name of Project: Building Your Bundle

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  Building Your Bundle is a program designed for youth by Indigenous youth. Based out of Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory, youth will go through a year cycle of ceremonies while also completing activities that their ancestors did to survive such as; gardening, harvesting, hunting, fishing/spearing, learning the language and learning about their ancestral lands. This year-long program will be completed with a core group of youth with activities led by youth, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers in a holistic manner. This project's aim is to start the revitalization of Indigenous culture to ensure it gets passed on 7 more generations.

 

Name of Organization: Temagami First Nation

Name of Project: Connecting with N'Daki Menan

Amount: $30,000

Project Description: This project aims to offer the citizens of Temagami First Nation the opportunity to take part in a series of culturally enriching events and activities. Through these events, the leads of the project hope to support the wellbeing of their community and it’s citizens. Medicinal walks, traditional craft(s) and practicing traditional harvesting are all ways they plan to ignite their traditional ways of being.

They aim to host a series of events that will happen over a 7 month span starting in August 2021 to February 2022. Each month, there will be an event/activity given to the community that will encompass the following:

 

·       Transmission of cultural practices and knowledge

·       Cultural and land based learning

·       Discussions and sharing circles

·       Empowerment of our culture, land and environment

·       Story telling

 

Name of Organization: Endaayaan Awejaa

Name of Project: Maawi Bmosedaa

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  Endaayaan Awejaa exists to alleviate the financial burden of Indigenous youth within the community by continuing to provide care packages & medicine bundles, clothing, non-perishable food items, and other essential needs that can be financially strenuous on small living allowances. This function has always occurred within their organization and is the staple of their defining mission statement; we are here to help our community.

 

This project seeks to build community capacity amongst the youth, community members and elders within Nipissing First Nation and surrounding areas. This project will help support and guide their youth to be strong leaders for their future generations. This group hopes to work with youth who are living on their own and support them to be successful in their own healthy living environment. This project will be completed over a year.

 

Name of Organization: Curve Lake Wasa-nabin

Name of Project: Nanda-Gikendan (seek to know it, seek to learn it)

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  This project aims to include Indigenous Youth & Community with a focus on understanding their relationship to the land, language, wellness, and art. It would be primarily focused on 4 parts of learning: land, language, wellness and art and would offer five additional engagements focused on traditional governance, wampum belts, pow wow teachings and dance, and Kinnoo-maage waapkong (better known as the Petroglyphs). Each learning part would have a guest speaker and traditional activities that would tie to their teachings. These sessions would be followed up by opportunity for youth reflection and greater conversation after.

 

Name of Organization: Assembly of Seven Generations

Name of Project: A7G Marketplace

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  The A7G Marketplace is an Indigenous youth led space where youth, families and community can come by to trade for goods including wild meats, medicines, regalia, beadwork, craft supplies and exclusive products from Indigenous entrepreneurs. The Marketplace is a community space for Indigenous youth to connect and to support within their community and A7G’s network. The group also has a community  garden and does land-based activities. Harvest and forage food and medicines goes back to the Marketplace where the community can trade. Traded items also support ongoing A7G activities, for example, some youth have been trading porcupine quills which will support a future webinar and youth will also be able to learn a new skill from these traded items.

 

Name of Organization: Treaty #3 Oshkiniigiig Youth Executive Council

Name of Project: Akinoomaagzid: Learning from Mother Earth

Amount: Requested $25, 300, but Advisors agreed to give this group $30,000

Project Description:  The Treaty #3 Oshkiniigiig Youth Executive Council (T3YEC) project seeks to connect Treaty #3 youth to the land and seasonal teachings by offering 1-2 gatherings to be held each season. Each gathering will include a land-based learning activity, such as self-guided medicine picking, wild rice harvesting, or setting a trap line. Each gathering would also be supplemented by a language or storytelling component that builds on the land-based learning activity and speaks to the history of the activity and season. The T3YEC will host each gathering in collaboration with Treaty #3 Elders, Knowledge Keepers, and those who continue to practice the traditional ways of life.

 

Name of Organization: Aaoodsokawin Mtigwaaking

Name of Project: Enhancing Aaoodsokawin Mtigwaaking's youth-led Seed Saving, Sugar Bushing and Hide Camp

Amount: $30,000

Project Description: Aaoodsokawin Mtigwaaking seeks to support Two Spirit youth and Two Spirit community in accessing safer spaces to learn land based cultural skills in a supportive environment. This project plans to achieve their objective by creating Two Spirit youth-led and adult-youth mentorship opportunities in traditional hide tanning, seed saving, earthwork, plant medicine practices and maple sugar bushing in Southern Ontario.

 

Name of Organization: Biizidun

Name of Project: Mino-giizhigad Noongom (Translation: It's A Good Day Today)

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  Biizidun is a collective of Indigenous youth who create art and new media to amplify the voices of Indigenous experiences and realities. Located in the City of Thunder Bay, Biizidun was founded in 2016 by Casha Adams, Ardelle Sagutechway and Zoe Gordon. The Mino-giizhigad project provides young Anishinaabe community members with the opportunity to share their lived experiences and teachings, while also learning from an elder on a 3-day camping excursion. Additional workshops will be provided after the camping trip to foster community relationship building.

 

Name of Organization: Revitalizing Our Sustenance

Name of Project: Revitalizing our Sustenance Project

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  Revitalizing Our Sustenance Project (ROSP) is an Indigenous youth-led program that provides Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth opportunities to learn about the importance of sustainable Haudenosaunee focused agricultural practices, while feeding their community. The group aims to revitalize their relationships to food, community, and the land. Revitalizing Our Sustenance Project is strengthening Indigenous community relations, language learning, Haudenosaunee identity, and establishing healthier outlets for Indigenous youth.

 

To learn more about the group, check out their website www.revitalizingoursustenance.com or Facebook and Instagram: @revitalizingoursustenance.

 

Name of Organization: SchoolBOX Inc

Name of Project: Gikendaaso anwebi waakaa'igan

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  The gikendaaso anwebi waakaa'igan project seeks to help support the future success of Indigenous youth K-12 attending the Gaagagekiizhik elementary & Bimose High school in Kenora, ON by providing the students access to culturally empowering educational resources and a gikendaaso anwebi waakaa'igan, "place of learning and rest".

 

This project will ensure that the kids and youth attending the Kiizhik school will have a place of learning and rest for generations, connecting them to traditional knowledge and language every day.  The future success of students is dependent on the resources they have access to. Libraries have the ability to support students in their literacy and communication skills and nurture their social, emotional and personal development.

 

Name of Organization: Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve

Name of Project: Zhoonyaakeng: Financial Literacy 101

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  The goal of this project is to have youth beneficiaries attain the necessary and relevant financial literacy skills needed to lead a prosperous and financially sound pathway toward their life goals. In an effort to preserve Anishinaabemowin, this project teaches youth to retain their language while learning financial skills. This project is seen as a benefit for youth as they will get the opportunity to learn financial literacy skills in Anishinaabemowin, truly a one of a kind learning experience.

 

Name of Organization: Wasauksing Restorative Justice

Name of Project: Restorative Justice Youth Program

Amount: Requested $25,000, but Advisors agreed to provide this group with $30,000

Project Description:  This project seeks to create a set of protocols for a restorative justice youth program. The restorative justice youth program combines social justice with Indigenous resurgence. The program diverts Indigenous youth from suspension or other western colonial mechanisms of consequence. Youth facing infractions will instead attend the restorative justice program where they will have access to Elders and traditional medicines and healing techniques.

 

Name of Organization: Indige-Spheres to Empowerment (Indige-Spheres Youth Group)

Name of Project: Mino-bimaadiziwag oshkiniijig akiing (The youth living well on the land)

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  This project is an interdisciplinary project that incorporates land-based cultural activities that include engagement with Indigenous youth and Elders/Teachers/Mentors. The group plans to host a core session that will help consolidate the overall vision of creating a safe cultural space for Indigenous youth. They will be utilizing their Garden site which has a tipi, 8 plots of gardens, a sweat lodge and sacred fire for activities to be enjoyed and learned on site. They will also host a weekend intensive core session with the Afro-Flow Yoga and Songwriting workshop to pull together their learnings from the series of workshops they plan to host throughout the year.

 

Name of Organization: RedBird Adventures

Name of Project: Traditional Outdoor Adventure Program

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  Red bird adventures is an Indigenous owned and operated business seeking the assistance to run outdoor adventure programs using Indigenous knowledge, practices and values to bring forward a program for BIPOC and 2 Spirit/LGBTQ++ youth.

 

This program seeks to amplify the connection with the youth through land based learning by combining Indigenous values, teachings, practices and outdoor adventure experiences. Bringing forward a meaning of community with others alike, connection to the land and water, and culture within their territory.

 

Name of Organization: River Rocks

Name of Project: Back 2 the Land Project - a River Rockz Initiative

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  This project seeks to provide a safe space for youth to increase knowledge of and access to culture-based activities, their languages, rights and laws through participation in a series of land-based activities as well as cultural and artistic workshops and sharing circles. It is their goal for youth to utilize the space as a means of reclaiming their identity, their cultural connection to the land and their community, as well as their personal well-being. Through this project, Indigenous youth will build healthy relationships with their peers, as well as artist mentors who can provide them with inspiration and guidance. The group seeks to encourage Indigenous youth to redefine for themselves what truth and reconciliation means to them, as well as their relationship to this land.

 

Name of Organization: Bagida'waad Alliance Inc.

Name of Project: Wawaawashkamon - It is a winding trail

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  This group hopes to inspire others to care for Saukiing Anishinaabekiing, their land and home, in a couple of unique ways: they plan to complete drone training, so more youth can learn to see how things are changing from the view in the sky and communicate it to people on and off reserve.  After they complete training in eco tourism and wilderness first aid, the group hopes to take other Anishinaabe youth and tourists hiking in the bush or shorelines, to have people smell, see and feel the environment.  In 10 years, they hope all of the youth will want to become leaders in taking care of their land, water and air.

 

Name of Organization: Gnaaj-wiinge Youth Group

Name of Project: Gnaaji-wiinge: Anishnaabe Life Path Project

Amount: Requested 27,914.98, but Advisors agreed to give this group $30,000

Project Description:  The Gnaaj-wiinge Youth Group has created the Gnaaji-wiinge: Anishinaabe Life Path Resource which is a board game based on the Anishnaabe life path teachings. The group’s goal is to further develop their Gnaaji-wiinge: Anishnaabe Life Path Resource by consulting with, and receiving and applying feedback from youth, Elders, and traditional cultural knowledge keepers. This group also plans to organize and deliver sessions with their board game to youth across Ontario. By doing this, the group strives to promote reconciliation, help Anishinaabe youth connect with their language, traditions, and culture, and help non-Indigenous youth gain a better understanding of Anishnaabe culture and values.

 

Name of Organization: Ottawa Inuit Children's Centre

Name of Project: Summer Culture Camps

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  The Summer Cultural Camp seeks to connect Inuit youth ages 6-14 from across the Ottawa region in a seven-week camp experience located in the urban setting. Each day the youth will be participating in cultural teachings and out-on-the-land excursions where they will deepen their understanding of their own culture from community members and Elders who will lead each session. This includes sewing, carving, print-making, throat singing, drumming, and Inuktitut lessons each day. There is a high population of Inuit youth living in the urban centre and it is important that our team provides the youth every opportunity to learn their culture from Elders and Knowledge Keepers.

 

Name of Organization: Youth Odena

Name of Project: Passing Moons: Identity Reclamation Project

Amount: $30,000

Project Description:  This project aims to strengthen Bawaating families of today and the future! They will work with young parents and teens in care together as a community, like sisters, and aunties and cousins would!  The group will use virtual and in person sharing circles to exchange skills, build confidence and reclaim our identities as young Indigenous people. They aim to ensure that participants know their spirit name, colour and clan; and at least 1 local knowledge keeper. They will celebrate 7 moons together and make sure Indigenous youth feel closer to their own identities and spirit.

 

Name of Organization: Story Up

Name of Project: Story Up- Awakening the Spirit of our History by Sharing our Present Stories

Amount: $30,000

Project Description: The Story Up projects will form space to create connections and community for urban Indigenous youth. By building a studio within our space to record music, spoken word, hip hop, youth podcasting and self expression. Their goal is to make their culture virtually accessible to reach young people. The group plans to host art workshops/ community kitchens with therapeutic small groups, share their history as First Nations and create history for the First Nation’s future.

 

The group has also identified the following: this project will be offered in Thunder Bay, a city in North Western Ontario (NWO) - recently known for its inquiry for unsolved deaths of Aboriginal people. A city with the highest murder rates per capita, a few years in a row. A city that is one of the largest in NWO. A base for off reserve members to call home. A city stolen from the Fort William First Nation people which are across the River who share their land of animkii wajiw (Thunder Mountain) surrounded by beauty our guardian Sleeping Giant, view of Lake Superior shores, yet the elephant in the room, which is the need for truth and reconciliation.

 

 

 

Pictured:

Assembly of Seven Generations