DWF Blog

Thank you to those who applied to the Youth Ambassador program and for a free virtual art workshop – we had over 150 applicants for 20 spots! We will be in touch with selected applicants soon. As well, our Spring Poster Challenge is still open, we can’t wait to see what reconciliACTION means to youth, their family, and community! For details on this and more, check out all the exciting things we are getting up to below.

New Artist Ambassadors, Upcoming Events, and More! With talented new Artist Ambassadors, exciting performances, and stories of incredible reconciliACTIONS, March is shaping up to be an exciting month! Take a look at just a few of the things we are looking forward to and don’t forget to check out our careers page for some exciting new opportunities with the expanding DWF team.

From applications opening up to the 2022 Youth Ambassador Program to exciting employment opportunities, here are just a few of the things we are working on at DWF!

Reconciliation is a collective journey with no clear endpoint and this year has further demonstrated how important that journey continues to be. We would like to thank everyone who took reconciliACTION in 2021 and joined us on this journey to foster meaningful relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples. Here is a snapshot of how we built awareness, education, and made connections to move reconciliation forward this year.

On May 28, we learned about the heartbreaking discovery of 215 children buried at a former residential school on Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc territory in Kamloops, BC. We stand with the Secwépemc community, all the families and communities of these young children, and all those impacted by residential schools in their grief. “It’s really hard when we know what they are going through. We always knew findings would come out one day.” said Daisy Munroe, Chanie Wenjack’s eldest sister.

Following a successful meeting on Dec. 5, 2020, the Educator Advisory Committee will meet again in March. Despite the difficult and unusual school year, our Legacy Schools have done great work in their efforts towards reconciliation. Their hard work and dedication has inspired our committee to continue to work as hard as possible - despite the circumstances - to improve and add to our Legacy Schools Program. We're extremely proud to introduce two new members to our committee.

Show us what you can do Legacy School students - even from home! We are calling on all Legacy School students to create a poster that answers the question "What does it mean to be an Indigenous Ally?" Winning selections will appear on our social media channels and in our Legacy School calendar for 2020-2021 - a great addition to any student portfolio!

Late January, Mike Downie joined DWF staff in visiting several Legacy Schools; Linwood Public School, Kitchener-Waterloo Vocational & Collegiate Institute (KCI), Waterloo Collegiate Institute (WCI) and Ryerson Public School in Cambridge. Every Legacy School begins the journey to understanding our shared Canadian history from a different place - be it location, age, knowledge - and it was a truly beautiful experience to have the opportunity to visit elementary, middle, and high school students to learn where they are in their journeys.  Conversations were had about the great initiatives students and teachers have been doing, and Mike shared stories about how the Gord Downie & Chanie Wenjack Fund came to be, the development of Secret Path, and what it means to see the important work being done by students. As Mike stated, "Gord knew we needed to get into schools."

Secret Path Live was an incredibly moving and impactful night for so many people, made even more special thanks to the generous support of the Buy One, Give One (BOGO) ticket purchasers. The BOGO ticket included one complimentary ticket for a Legacy School student or Indigenous youth who could not otherwise afford to attend the show. Through their generous support over 100 students and educators were able to attend, with five groups travelling over 1000km to attend.

Our friends at Learning Bird have created a series of free resources based on Secret Path, which tells the story of Chanie Wenjack’s flight from residential school. In honour of the United Nations International Year of Indigenous Languages 2019, the resources that they have created position Chanie Wenjack’s story as an opportunity to explore the topic of Indigenous languages and how they relate to Indigenous rights on a local, regional, national, and global scale.