Truth comes before Reconciliation; workshop series starts soon

To the Editor:

A free workshop series is coming to town at your Friendship Centre! To benefit from local perspectives and take part in cultural education, Keepers of the Athabasca invites you to participate in one workshop each month, starting in September 2019.

Workshops include Exploring the Treaties, Indigenous Water Governance, the KAIROS Blanket Exercise, Community Climate Action, Where’s My Power, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, and State of the Watershed (a Talking and Listening circle leading to a community report about human perspectives on water).

Keepers of the Athabasca’s mission is to unite the peoples of the Athabasca River and Lake Watershed to secure and protect water and watershed lands for ecological, social, cultural and community health and well-being. We developed the Flowing workshop series in order to accomplish this mission and share perspectives within our communities in Northern Alberta.

The year 2017 was Canada’s 150th birthday and also Keepers of the Athabasca’s 10th anniversary, and as an Indigenous-led organization, we had interesting discussions around the concept of celebration. We worked for a full year to develop these workshops, and have been presenting them in Northern Alberta schools for the past year. In the spirit of unity and reconciliation, we present the Flowing workshops; a series of community workshops to enlist institutions, businesses, and the general public to ‘flow into right relationship’ with a common appreciation and love for the water and land that sustain us all. Since Truth comes before Reconciliation ….

Jule Asterisk
Keepers of the Athabasca