Many steps with one goal: Our Truth & Reconciliation Research Action Team encompasses both Indigenous Elders and Community Members and Non-Indigenous Leaders that continually examine steps we can take as a society to address the consequences of our ongoing legacy of colonization.

Why an Aboriginal Liaison Officer: 

Over-policing and under-protection are considered key issues underlying missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls. Vital to addressing this, is assisting the police to develop better cultural competencies, understanding of the impacts of colonization and better relationships with indigenous communities. The factor that can shift this is to ensure that each district office has an indigenous liaison officer. Currently, there is only one Indigenous Liaison officer in a city of 1.2M which is inadequate.

 

A history of colonization:

It is time that we face the truth of our colonial past and how it has impacted all of us. We must not just face our past, we also need to build new, life-giving relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people so that together we can shape a relationship in which all can thrive. 

The history of colonization is a wound that strikes at the very heart of this land. This leaves us with the question of how can we heal this wound. We are approaching this by:

1. Building relationships between communities
2. Truth-telling
3. Taking action to address the ongoing legacy of colonialism

In addition to the above request for an Aboriginal Liason officer and the name change for Langevin School, we continue to support:

1. The creation of an Indigenous Gathering Place as a cultural, spiritual and community centre in Calgary. For more information about the Indigenous Gathering Place, please visit https://www.indigenousgatheringplace.com.
2. Practicing the teaching of Making Wolf – as a model for truth-telling and making peace after a conflict.
3. Learning how to build alliances between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples and sharing what we learn.
4. Addressing the “colonial mindset” through education, relationship-building and connecting to the land.
5. The “Wrestling with the Truth of Colonization” training, a five-session process to help us wrestle with the truth of colonization, and move from being tokenistic to allies to accomplices in the work of reconciliation.

 

 

The Truth & Reconciliation Research Action Team meets once per month to work together on this Campaign. Meetings are hosted on Zoom on the Second Tuesday of every month at 7:30 p.m. To join or learn more please e-mail [email protected].

Further details on our ongoing campaigns can be found on our internal website, located at team.calgarycommongood.org.

 

 

 

We would like to thank the Calgary Foundation for their support of this work.