The IEJ project has been offering workshops for Indigenous youth with a focus on self-determination and climate change. Indigenous peoples have their own climate change stories that explain the environmental challenges we currently face. Our stories and prophecies have warned us of events that have since come to pass, while also providing the necessary guidance for meeting these challenges and securing a future for the unborn. Indigenous peoples have met with devastating environmental change over the past few centuries and have survived multiple genocidal policies and practices, yet here we are today! We have demonstrated the capacity to adapt and have been resilient in the face of catastrophic losses. We continue to imagine a future from the perspective of peoples who have experience adapting to severe environmental disruption. By returning to our stories, our traditional knowledge, we can strengthen our communities and realize our responsibilities to the Earth and future generations. In this workshop, we showed how our stories can help us understand climate change from our own perspectives and what we need to do to form a self-determined path forward based on our teachings, ceremonies, knowledge and laws. Led by youth, we illustrated how our own languages and land-based activities can be a source of strength in the face of great change.
Climate Change Stories, with Deborah McGregor, Hillary McGregor and Jayce Chiblow at Wabano Symposium 2019 – The Land is Medicine, November 5-6, 2019 in Ottawa, ON
Earth Stories: Self-Determination and Climate Change Futures, with Deborah McGregor, Hillary McGregor and Jayce Chiblow at the Assembly of First Nations’ National First Nations Youth Summit on Environment and Climate Action, April 6-7, 2020 in Wendake, QC
Climate Change: Stories of Resilience, with Deborah McGregor, Hillary McGregor, Marion McGregor and Jayce Chiblow at the Assembly of First Nations’ National Climate Gathering, March 2-4, 2020 in Whitehorse, YT
