Weekly Round-Up, March 11 2022
March 11 2022
A lot has been happening lately across Turtle Island. We know it can be hard to keep up, so we’ve compiled a list of news, events, and big stories related to Indigeneity and the climate crisis.
ICA NEWS:
Processing the IPCC Report - Online Discussion
We've spent some time with the IPCC report and humbly invite you to join some of ICA's team members as we process the findings with a decolonial lens. Read our latest blog and be sure to check out our recorded conversation where we draw on our own experiences as Indigenous people and discuss how climate change has affected our communities and the land in which we grew up on, learned from and honour.
Watch the video & read the blog
OPPORTUNITIES:
Research Fellowships With the Samuel Centre for Social Connectedness
DEADLINE: March 15 2022
The Social Connectedness Fellowship empowers students and recent graduates to carry out innovative research that will inspire local and global action to build community and belonging. Fellows will have the opportunity to work with us at Indigenous Climate Action and conduct research, writing, analysis, and outreach in thematic areas related to social isolation and connectedness.
We’re Hiring: Research Manager
Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is looking for someone who is ambitious, personable and passionately committed to true Indigenous Climate Justice to serve as its Research Manager. This position requires a deep understanding of the intersectional approaches of climate justice and Indigenous rights in application to research contexts. This is a remote, work from home, online working position with priority given to Indigenous people who live in so-called Canada.
We’re Hiring: Decolonizing Climate Policy Researcher
Indigenous Climate Action (ICA) is looking for someone who is ambitious, personable and passionately committed to true Indigenous Climate Justice to serve as its Decolonizing Climate Policy (DCP) Researcher. This position requires a deep understanding of the intersectional approaches of climate justice and Indigenous rights in application to research contexts. This is a remote, work from home, online working position with priority given to Indigenous people who live in so-called Canada.
Digital Impact Internship
Deadline: March 20 2022
The Digital Impact Internship is a 10-week communications training program that includes a 2-week theoretical skill-building intensive followed by an 8-week implementation practicum. Through this inaugural program, participants will learn the fundamentals for creating, launching, and reviewing a digital communications campaign in a professional communications setting. And they will do so in a way that focuses on centering Indigenous voices within the digital media landscape.
NEWS:
Vancouver’s Indigenous communities are reimagining housing & urban development
March 8 2022
In Vancouver a new type of Indigenous community is emerging — one that builds resilience, health, creativity and culture through shared housing and local, Indigenous leadership.
“People have a hard time seeing themselves as creative people without ‘the basics’,” said Mike Alexander, a Vancouver-based Indigenous artist. Having access to secure housing, personal safety and resources that other people take for granted, he said, “makes it easier to “step outside yourself and see the world through a creative lens.”
International Women’s Day time to recognize contributions at the community level, says Pauktuutit
March 8 2022
Inuit women make contributions across Canada every day, and International Women’s Day is an important moment to recognize them, says Pauktuutit Inuit Women of Canada.
“When you think about Inuit women, they’re mental health workers, they’re social workers, they’re counsellors even if they don’t have the certification that says as much,” Pauktuutit’s Executive Director Rosemary Cooper said in a phone interview.
“Their volunteerism needs to be recognized because they’re the glue holding their communities together, being there for someone in need, or even just being a sounding board.”
Indigenous women are blazing a conservation trail
March 8 2022
Despite comprising only five per cent of the world’s population, Indigenous people protect 80 per cent of the world’s remaining biodiversity, according to a 2021 report by Territories of Life. In Canada, Indigenous women are leading the charge to preserve biodiversity and fight climate change by heading up important new conservation initiatives.
Chief in Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation says unusual weather event linked to climate change
March 8 2022
It’s an incident weighing heavily on Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation Chief Dana Tizya-Tramm, showcasing how climate change is rapidly impacting the North. Last week Tizya-Tramm’s community of Old Crow was in limbo for five days because a convoy of trucks delivering building supplies by ice road was prevented from arriving due to an aggressive overflow which is the result of ice and snow pushing down on a body of water like a river, forcing water up over the ice.
Climate change has First Nations seeking justice as food security threatened
March 9 2022
The Westaway Law Group is challenging government policy that threatens food security for First Nations. Legal counsel Brett Campeau informed that interviews have taken place with knowledge holders who are Elders of Biigtigong Nishnaabeg in the Northern Superior Region and Garden River First Nation and Wahnapitae First Nation in the Lake Huron Region. Campeau says in the past decades there has been an increase in temperatures with a more pronounced warming in the more northern parts of the country.
Int’l Inuit org concerned about future of Arctic Council
March 9 2022
The Inuit Circumpolar Council (ICC) represents the approximately 180,000 Inuit in Alaska, Canada, Greenland, and Chukotka, Russia. The council’s projects are done through their working groups made up of Indigenous peoples and other experts in everything from emergency preparedness to biodiversity. Russia took over the forum’s two-year rotating chairmanship from Iceland last year. On Thursday, Canada, Denmark/Greenland, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden and the United States announced they were pausing participation in the Arctic Council’s work amidst Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
ACTIONS & EVENTS:
Online Rally: Free Grassy Narrows with Adam Beach
March 26 2022
Grassy Narrows has turned a decades-long injustice into a national issue that can’t be ignored. Now it’s time to ramp up the campaign for mercury justice compensation for all. After many decades of tirelessly pursuing justice, Grassy Narrows has won important commitments to improve care for mercury sufferers, reform the Mercury Disability Board, and clean up the English-Wabigoon River.
Event: RISE 2022 (Recognize Indigenous Sustainable Education)
Runs until: March 31 2022
The 2022 RISE Webinar Series is a follow-up to the popular series from 2021 and 2020. While the pandemic makes it challenging to gather and learn together in person, we are able to learn together online.
Nibi (water) Gathering in Manitoba
Registration date: April 1 2022
Date: May 26 - 29 2022
This event will take place in Manitou Api, Bannock Point (Whiteshell), Manitoba.
For more info & to register, email: nibigathering@gmail.com