Indigenous Climate Action has grown - Welcome our new staff!
We would like to introduce to you some new faces that are now a part of Indigenous Climate Action. It is with great pleasure we introduce you to…
Maryel Sparks-Cardinal - Communications Coordinator
Maryel is Cree-Metis whose family is from Lac La Biche Alberta. Maryel has experience in communications, as a videographer, policy analyst, filmmaker and Indigenous youth worker. Maryel brings a diverse and well-rounded eye to her work at ICA.
Maryel has worked for Indigenous and government organizations such as BC's Ministry of Advanced Education, UBC's First Nations House of Learning, Aboriginal eMentoring BC, and the Urban Native Youth Association. Maryel holds an Arts degree from the University of British Columbia and a Film Production Diploma from inFocus Film school.
Valine Crist - Funding Coordinator
Valine's academic and advocacy work is committed to upholding Indigenous title and rights and achieving environmental justice. Her grassroots organizing became a way of life when a mega-oil export project threatened her ancestral homelands. She has a Master’s degree in anthropology – her thesis analyzed the diverse alliance formed in opposition to Enbridge’s Northern Gateway. The opposition, she found, is largely motivated by a deep sense of place and strong connection to Haida Gwaii’s lands and waters.
For three years, Valine worked as the research writer for her government, the Council of the Haida Nation, before moving into the non-profit world where she spent her time doing research and community outreach looking at the harmful impacts of liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects proposed in Northern BC. Today, she is a budding author and Funding Coordinator with ICA.
When she’s not working on the financial sustainability of ICA, Valine serves as Secretary to the board of Sierra Club BC, she sits on the Steering Committee with the Friends of Wild Salmon, and she is a proud co-founder of Haida Gwaii CoASt and Swiilawiid Sustainability Society. Swiilawiid -- a place-based not-for-profit -- is her passion project working to achieve energy sovereignty on Haida Gwaii.
Valine does her strategizing on the beach and finds her inspiration in the forest.
Siku Allooloo - Toolkit Researcher
Siku Allooloo is an Inuit/Haitian Taino writer and community builder from Denendeh (Northwest Territories). She has a diverse background in Indigenous land-based education, youth work, and community-based research. She also holds a BA in Anthropology and Indigenous Studies from the University of Victoria and belongs to a strong lineage of writers, activists and leaders who have raised her to be close to the land. Her creative nonfiction, poetry and other writing center on decolonial politics, environmental protection and ending gender violence, and has been featured in The New Quarterly, The Malahat Review, Briarpatch, The Guardian, and NationsRising, among others.
Ana Collins - Toolkit Researcher
Ana Collins was born in Ute territory and grew up on Algonquin land. She spent over a decade living in Mi’kmaqi, Oneida/Chippewa aki, Squamish, Tsliel-waututh and Xwméthkwyiem territory, Mayan and Zapotec lands. Her family comes from Ogaa, Cymru, Éire and Bayern. She has been involved in the International Panel on Climate Change at the UN, she has mobilized against the WTO, the OAS and the FTAA, worked for the World Wildlife Fund, was the Indigenous Coordinator for the Peoples Social Forum 2014, Legislative Assistant in the House of Commons to MP Romeo Saganash, been a student a few times with degrees in International Relations, Latin American studies, Critical Theory and Translation; she has owned a restaurant; and is mother to a wonderful son. Currently, she is the co-founder of Niigaan: In Conversation and is thrilled to be part of an amazing team working in Indigenous ways of being to develop solutions to Climate Change at ICA.
Andrea Bastien - Administrator Self described as a 'maker of things' across artistic mediums such as dance, beat making, dj'ing, beadworking, design, and visual arts, Andrea Bastien reflects her multi-platform practice to her cultural lineage. Belonging to the Otter Clan from the Blackfoot (Blood, Peigan), Cree and Anishnaabe nations, this is a portion of her multi-ethnicity. Living in the space between, her work as a whole is informed by this.
Andrea has an extensive, continuous and evolving relationship with music and community engagement, one that brings her to a variety of cultural and educational projects and events. This led her to work with organizations such as Redwire NYM, UMAYC, Indigenous Media Arts Group, Raven Spirit Dance, imagineNATIVE, Toronto Aboriginal Youth Council, TDSB Aboriginal Education, and Naadmaagit Ki Group along with many others. The majority of these endeavors resonate in youth work, leading workshops, programming, planning, mentorship, and land-based initiatives. Andrea has been a: youth advocate, advisor, administrator, performer, program facilitator, and communications coordinator, to name a few of her roles within these organizations.
In her leisure time, under her DJ name Ariel, Andrea has played sets at venues such as the Art Gallery of Ontario, The Vancouver Art Gallery, and Yonge and Dundas Square, at events including Manifesto and imagineNATIVE, as well as opening for artists like Anderson .Paak, Kaytrananda, Daniel Caesar, and Tanya Taqaq.
Andrea is excited to join Indigenous Climate Action to assist and organize the future!
