Envisioning ICA’s new structure: From seeds to flowers
This was once a seed. Carried in the minds and hearts of the people.
“We are our own experts. We don’t have to translate ourselves all the time through the lens of the mainstream” - Danika Littlechild
Watered by the life blood (and tears) of the many, Nurtured in the hands of the ancestors, Held together by love, Woven in relationships of trust, reciprocity and visions of hope.
“We are our ancestors' wildest dreams.”
Eriel Tchekwie Deranger
For the last 7 years I have been holding this vision gifted to me - to foster a space for our people to be seen, heard, held, and uplifted in the climate movement. Over a decade of work in the climate movement fed this dream. There have been so many days where I wasn’t sure I could do it, but people continued to believe in this vision. They stood by me, and said “let me carry some of the load”. Little by little over the last 7 years we have come together as a team of incredible Indigenous minds and leaders willing to step into spaces and places that were never built for us. Since landing in my role as the Executive Director in 2017, I have dedicated myself to supporting the vision of creating an Indigenous-led climate justice organization in so-called Canada that empowers our communities to be leaders in the climate justice movement.
It was a goal of mine to avoid creating another ENGO that sterilizes our culture and rights as simply a party trick or one off tactic in addressing the climate crisis. Holding Indignenous rights, culture, ways of being, learning and knowing at the centre of our work shifts the way we operate and makes ICA unique not only in its composition but our approach. We look to unpack how existing systems have tokenized, romanticized and degraded the strengths of our people and rights and have been exploring what it could look like to recentre Indigenous peoples, rights and culture as opposed to colonial ideologies and white supremacy. This meant starting from the ground up and building something completely new and not being driven by timelines and systems tied to electoral and colonial systems.
We are forging paths for ourselves and our kin, we are holding self-determination and sovereignty at the centre and inviting change. Climate Justice demands more than protest or reduction of GHGs, it requires liberation from the root causes of planetary injustices - from colonialism, extractivism, capitalism, patriarchy and white supremacy. These systems don’t serve us or our kin on Mother Earth.
2021 was a year of deep transformation for ICA with new team members, pathways and an internal structural shift to ensure we can continue meet the needs of our team and the goals of ICA: creating resources and training, amplifying community voices and supporting the sovereignty and self-determination, and holding up healing justice in advancing Indigenous climate strategies and solutions.
ICA’s new structure includes the development of new team Pods, new pod leaders and new team members. This “pod” organizational structure is rooted in a holistic approach to leadership and decision making. Our new pod structures includes:
All these faces, voices, minds and bodies are here to be ancestors for our future generations.
All of the staff pods are upheld and guided by our Heart and Soul Pod, which is composed of our National Steering Committee, Executive Steering Committee and our advisory councils and leadership groups. This is a critical part of ICA’s heart and soul. It was through our community advisories that ICA’s vision, mission and mandate was created. Much of our work is guided and directed by the National Steering Committee (SC) and Executive Steering Committee (ESC) who we update and request input and support from on a quarterly basis ensuring full transparency in our respective work areas.
The seeds of ICA have been sown and some seasons we struggled to grow but the vision behind the work has continued to flourish. We experimented with different ways of operating and learned many lessons along the way. In the last year we dug deep as a team to envision what it would look like to restructure and build an organization that could meet the growing needs for Indigenous climate justice, embody decolonial ideals, and support a team to be nurtured in a sustainable work environment that didn’t replicate extractive work environments that proliferate the ENGO community. We wanted to do better for our staff and for our communities.
We envision this structure as non-hierarchical and one rooted in a more holistic approach to leadership and decision making. Our organizational chart is one modeled with a flower with roots, stem, flower and petals to make a structure that is interdependent on the parts as a whole.
We are working at the speed of trust by centering relationships, partnerships and environments as critical to addressing the climate crisis just as much as our programs, research, reports and the endless productivity found within the nonprofit sector. Taking on the task of building a decolonial organization has been a challenging and beautiful journey. Unlike many other climate justice organizations ICA is not interested in targeting specific groups, corporations or even policies. Instead, ICA is focused on building up our communities and taking the lead from the communities that we work with and the strengths they have. This bottom up approach is dependent on where the communities see themselves and what they want to achieve.
This meant I needed to unpack and challenge my own preconceived notions of what it meant to build an organization and what could be possible if I leaned into my own teachings, and the teachings of those that I walked with.
What does decentralized and collective decision making look like? Can we build structures that honor our culture and community commitments? Is a four day work week possible? What does a trust based organization look like? Can we achieve our vision, mission and values in a structure that doesn’t hold productivity and product based goals as the central value?
In looking at these questions we have now landed and begun to break new ground and till new soils together as a team. I am so honored to work with a beautiful team of Indigenous leaders and allies who are so passionate about working towards transformative climate justice. We have adopted a permanent 4 day work week without any salary deductions, we have family leave, moon time leave and honor our teams commitments and responsibilities to their communities and families. Along with our new Healing Justice program, we are focusing on ensuring that we are valuing our team members as community members, and most importantly as complex human beings.
I encourage you to check out our staff page to meet the new team members and learn a little more about the amazing people behind this work.
Together we can build another future, and together we will.
Mársi for believing in me, Mársi for standing with me, Mársi for doing this work. Mársi yenidhÿn.