The Interfaith Summer Institute is collaborating with several organizations and groups to support a truth and reconciliation process that is based on Indigenous Knowledge and teachings.
TRUTH & RECONCILIATION
Seeking Balance in Relations
Saturday, February 7th, 2009
Saturday, April 25th, 2009
10:00 am to 5:00 pm
Knox United Church
Coastal Salish Territory (Vancouver)
In the context of the Truth & Reconciliation process, two one day workshops will bring together Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal participants. These will
- Introduce Indigenous teachings on relationships to land, medicines and language
- Reflect on our relationship to history, our Ancestors and the land
- Explore the concepts of reciprocity and responsibility
- Explore a collective vision of restoring balance in relationships between
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples
These two days will include ceremony, spiritual practice and creative expression.
LARRY GRANT Musqueam Elder. Born and raised in Musqueam traditional territory by a traditional Musqueam family. Grew up between Musqueam Reserve and Vancouver City. Became a certified automotive Machinist after high school graduation then into the Longshore industry as a Heavy Duty mechanic. Retired after four decades in the work force then enrolled in Musqueam/UBC First Nations Languages Program in 1998. Now teaches the Musqueam language course at UBC.
SAA HIIL THIT (Gerry) OLEMAN has worked with the Indian Residential School Survivors Society since 1998. He is from Seaton Lake and of the Stl,atl,ix Nation. His experiences include counselling for community addictions programs, providing leadership politically and administratively for his community and Nation, and working as a cultural ceremonialist and as an independent consultant. He works for the UBC Institute of Aboriginal Health and is an Elder in residence at BCIT, and Vancouver Front Door .
DENISE NADEAU is of mixed French, Irish, and English heritage; her ancestors intermarried with and colonized the land of the Mi’kmaq people of Gaspe in Quebec. She is a theologian, movement therapist and popular educator whose work combines expressive art therapies and spiritual practices in the repair of violence. She has worked in both ecumenical and interfaith contexts for many years, and, in particular, in the area of Native—Non-Native relationships. She is Acting Director of the Interfaith Summer Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements at Simon Fraser University.
ALANNAH EARL YOUNG is from the Opaskwayak Cree/Peguis Anishnabe Nations in Manitoba. She is a facilitator and trainer and works as an advisor with University of British Columbia's First Nations House of Learning in Vancouver. She is trained in expressive art therapies, and arts-based socially transformative pedagogies. Alannah's current work has been developing and delivering wholistic programming that reaffirms Indigenous Leadership and Sovereignty. She works with the Interfaith Summer Institute and is a mother, artist, Traditional practitioner and singer.
Hosted by Rev. Brian Thorpe of Ryerson United Church and Rev. Sally McShane of Knox United Church and co-sponsored by the Interfaith Summer Institute for Justice, Peace and Social Movements.
Lunch will be catered by Salishan Catering/Denise Sparrow.
Pre-registration required for meals. One can register for April 25 without attending the Feb 7th workshop but please review the follow-up materials on this site before attending.
Register at interf@sfu.ca or by phone at Ryerson United Church: (604) 266-5377.
Download a PDF poster and/or flyer for this event.
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THE LIVING HEALING QUILT PROJECT
- Promoting Healing -
One Stitch at a Time
A Hands-On Workshop Tour
March 2 to March 13, 2009
The Living Healing Quilt Project is a collaboration between the Interfaith Summer Institute and Aboriginal organizations, including Vancouver Aboriginal Child and Family Services, SFU First Nations Studies, and the Native Youth Artists Collective.
Anishinaabe textile artist, Alice Williams, from Curve Lake, Ontario, is working on a several national quilts and wall hangings that are bringing together squares made by residential school survivors across the country. Alice will lead a series of workshops that bring together people who have been directly affected by residential schools and/or colonialism to create their own quilt squares in a group context. The squares will be made into a blanket or tapestry to be left with that community or organization. Four workshops would be held on the Lower Mainland and two on Vancouver Island.
This tour is intended to:
1) promote sustainable Indigenous traditional arts and crafts as appropriate resources in telling the stories of residential schools and colonialism.
2) To support participants in expressing and recording a visual memory of their history that can contribute to the truth and reconciliation process and to healing.
Alice is available to meet with non-Aboriginal textile artists and groups to share about both the Living Healing Quilt Project and Our Quilts of Recognition, a quilting project on awareness of the impact of residential schools for non-Aboriginals.
Alice Olsen Williams was born in Trout Lake, 150 miles north of Kenora, in the traditional territory of her mother's people from time before memory. Having taught in Thunder Bay and at Pic Mobert First Nation, Alice and her husband, Doug, moved to Curve Lake First Nation just north of Peterborough, Ont., where Doug was born and raised. While looking after their four children and their home, Alice completed her B.A. from Trent University as well as developing her skills in beadwork and sewing. In 1980 she discovered quilting, mastering the techniques which allow her to create the meticulous hand-quilting in her bed coverings and wall hangings. Gradually Alice formed the concepts which would be the basis for her distinctive style and work. Blending her cultural heritage into a unified whole, she envisions the central motif
to depict the symbols and themes of Anishinaabe culture, surrounded by the conventional North American quilting blocks and patterns which were developed and continue to be evolved by those women and their descendants who came to this Land from Europe, the legacy of her father's people. Through her understanding of the teachings of the Elders, Alice has created her own Life symbol. She continues to grow as an artist, searching for new ways to express the Spirit of Creation in the images of her designs.
Alice is Associate Artist in Residence at Trent University, and is recognized nationally for her quilt art. She has had many expositions with her quilts, including 'Healthy Land, Healthy People' made for the Assembly of First Nations for the Nov.2005 and hung at the First Ministers Meeting at Kelowna, B.C. She has worked with community quilters to assemble the 'Where Are the Children?: Healing from the Legacy of Residential School' quilt made in Red Lake, the 'Sisters in Spirit Quilt' for the Native Women's Association of Canada, and is now working on a series of tapestries of quilt squares made by residential
school survivors for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
For more information on the Living Healing Quilt Project contact interf@ sfu.ca, or phone: (250) 871-2401.
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INTERFAITH SOLIDARITY DELEGATION TO COLOMBIA
Final Report on the ISI - Peace for Life Delegation to Colombia 
Peace for Life Declaration on Colombia
The Interfaith Summer Institute is sponsoring a delegation to Colombia that will include attendance at the Peace For Life Forum in Bogota and a shared PFL-ISI peace and solidarity mission with Christian Peacemaker Teams to the region of Magdalena Medio and the city of Barrancabermeja.
PEACE FOR LIFE PEOPLE’S FORUM IN COLOMBIA
March 20 to 23, 2009
A joint programme of Peace for Life and a Consortium of Colombian NGOs.
Please visit www.peaceforlife.org
For Christian Peacemaker Teams in Colombia go to www.cpt.org/work/Colombia
If you are interested in the ISI delegation to Colombia please contact us at interf@sfu.ca for more information.
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2008 Summer Institute Program
2007 Summer Institute Program
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