The beauty of ceremony is that it does not judge any of us.
∞ Brad Fisher, Aboriginal Friendship Centre Calgary
Cultural awakening and healing often begins with reconnecting to ceremony. To ‘old ways’ that sustained Indigenous Peoples before ‘contact’, before cultural genocide, before Residential School, intergenerational trauma and multi-generational poverty, before the tearing away of cultural identity and the societal intention to ‘take the Indian out of the child’.
We are all victims of colonialization. We must all stop contributing to the trauma. We must all heal together.
At Inn from the Cold, we value learning from those we serve how best to serve them. Recently, we created a new position, Manager, Indigenous Programs. We are delighted to have Samantha Urias join our team in this role. We do not want to perpetuate the harm and discriminatory practices of colonialism upon those we serve. Under Samantha’s guidance, we want to ensure all our programs and practices are culturally respectful and empowering for the Indigenous children and families who come to the Inn for Shelter, Sanctuary and Healing.
“For Inn from the Cold, when we inform everything we do and create through an Indigenous lens, we create better, for our guests, our staff, our community and all of Canada,” says Abe Brown, Executive Director, Inn from the Cold. “This is the most profound gesture we can make to take responsibility for what our forefathers enacted upon an entire people and their culture that caused harm. We cannot change what happened. We can create a different, more kind and thoughtful path forward.”
Thank you Scott Calling Last for providing culturally sensitive practices and healing spaces for guests, staff and volunteers and for being part of this video along with Samantha. On this day, the summer solstice which marks National Aboriginal Day, we stand together to honour the significant contributions First Nations, Intuit and the Métis Nation have made to shape our identity as Canadians.
