From my window stands Siyám Smánit: welcoming yet imposing. Solemn yet exuberant. And, above all— for me-– a daily, visual reminder that I am accountable to this land and its people.
This personal accountability carries into my role as Co-Director at RADIUS, where over the years our team learned (and continues to) how to deepen our relationships with Indigenous Peoples.
Recently, our team encountered two important moments that helped us clarify how we intend on practicing solidarity with Indigenous Peoples:
- Our decision to sunset the First Peoples Enterprise Accelerator Program (FPEAP), and
- The drafting of our strategic plan.
Sunsetting the First Peoples Enterprise Accelerator Program (FPEAP)
The 10-year-chapter that was FPEAP–which worked towards a decolonized economy created for and by Indigenous people— is complete. Wrapping up FPEAP was a decision that was not taken lightly or suddenly. In the years leading up to this moment, FPEAP not only helped us refine our values, but led us to decide how we wanted to operate as a settler-run organization on unceded territories.
In the spirit of Truth and Reconciliation, we sat with the truth that as a settler organization, we weren’t the best people to be leading this work. Instead, we will continue to activate as allies to Indigenous-led organizations and projects, as they have requested from all settlers to do. As such, we decided to not seek further funding for ourselves because we believe funding for Indigenous programming should go directly to Indigenous communities.
To the partners who trusted us along the way—the Fireweed Institute, Reconciliation Canada, Sto:lo Community Futures, EntrepreNorth, RAVEN Indigenous Capital Partners—thank you for sharing your wisdom with us and for co-creating programming entrepreneurs needed.
To the many Indigenous entrepreneurs who we have worked alongside—it was an inspiration to witness your impact across a diversity of communities, landscapes, and cultures. You are the force transforming Western economic practices.
To the Indigenous matriarchs who have called us in with gusto and love–Candice, Chief Leanne, Jacqueline, Carrie, Laura, Jeska, Verna, Dara, Dorothy, Naomi–our gratitude cannot be captured by words.
There is so much more we could say about this. If you’re interested in the nitty gritty of it, here’s a quick, but detailed read.
Solidarity as a Foundation for RADIUS' upcoming Strategic Plan
We are coming to the end of many months of strategically mapping our next five years, and in the coming months, we will be revealing our new Strategic Plan. The process has been full of deep conversations and tough decision making. As a result, we have been reflecting and summarizing the ways we have been invited to deepen our relationships with Indigenous Peoples as well as the specific steps we are uniquely situated to take towards truth and reconciliation.
RADIUS is a settler organization set within a post-secondary institution, operating on the unceded, traditional, and ancestral lands of the xʷməθkwəy̓əm (Musqueam), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh (Squamish), Səl̓ílwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh), q̓ic̓əy̓ (Katzie), and kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem) Nations. We employ, work alongside, and partner with Indigenous peoples from these lands and around the globe. We operate within capitalism and settler colonialism – a socio-economic system that was created to eliminate the sovereignty and self-determination of Indigenous Peoples and their ways of being.
For all these reasons, and so much more, we are very clear as a team that we will continue to take actions to be in solidarity with Indigenous Peoples of these lands, and use our power and privilege to align with the needs and invitations of Indigenous Peoples. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but here’s how we’ve identified we can do this
- Provide resources to our team members so we all understand ourselves better. Many of our teachers have said it: understanding oneself and our colonial conditioning is the foundational element to being able to build reciprocal relationships with Indigenous Peoples. So we will continue to carve out time, professional development funds, team training, and more into our operations (e.g., the RESPECT Program, Trauma of Money workshops).
- Use our privilege, position, power, and resources to speak about the truth of Canada’s colonial project, as well as historic and continued oppressive structures and barriers. We will continue to integrate decolonial methodologies and learnings from various Indigenous teachers (e.g., Step into the River framework, decolonized project management) in our curriculum and pedagogy, our speaking engagements, and also our conversations with funders, clients, and each other.
- Enter and nurture relationships in a reciprocal manner that elevates collective liberation. This looks like embracing the gift economy, showing up with humility and accountability, understanding Indigenous visions so as to better support them, and recommending our clients to work directly with Indigenous leaders on decolonization.
In other words, we are very much committed to be (to some) and become (to others) a trustworthy partner that invests in walking the talk of decolonization and collective liberation, and that will continue to offer programming that further Truth and Reconciliation Commissions calls for Actions number 57, 92 and 93:
- No. 57: Provide education to public servants on the history of Aboriginal peoples, including the history and legacy of residential schools, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, Treaties and Aboriginal rights, Indigenous law, and Aboriginal–Crown relations. This will require skills based training in intercultural competency, conflict resolution, human rights, and anti-racism.
- No. 92: Adopt the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples as a reconciliation framework and to apply its principles, norms, and standards to corporate policy and core operational activities involving Indigenous peoples and their lands and resources.
- No. 93: We call upon the federal government, in collaboration with the national Aboriginal organizations, to revise the information kit for newcomers to Canada and its citizenship test to reflect a more inclusive history of the diverse Aboriginal peoples of Canada, including information about the Treaties and the history of residential schools.
Last, but not the least, our team recognizes that similar patterns of settler colonialism are unfolding in various phases across the globe. Indigenous Peoples in Palestine, Kashmir, Congo, South Africa, West Papua, Tibet, Xinjiang, Argentina, Australia, and Ukraine, among others continue to resist settler colonial violence.
For collective liberation to truly be realized, we must equip ourselves with the knowledge and courage to stand alongside all colonized peoples.
I am blessed to have Siyám Smánit keeping me accountable to this, but also this team and you, human reading these lines.
Thank you for embarking on this journey with us.