A7G7

This organization provides a weekly space for Indigenous youth in Ottawa to gather and both practice and learn cultural teachings. They also host an annual youth-Elders gathering and annual Round Dance celebration.

Aunties on the Road

This is an Indigenous doula collective that provides Indigenous culturally-grounded sexual and reproductive care to Indigenous people in Eastern Ontario. With the Harbinger Foundation’s support, in November 2019 they held a 5-day Indigenous doula training in Kingston Ontario in partnership with Kenhtèke Midwives. This training equipped 15 participants, primarily from Indigenous communities in the Kingston area, with knowledge and skills to support Indigenous community members in the field of reproductive and sexual health.

ImagineNATIVE

This year marked the 20th anniversary of the Indigenous film festival, which seeks to inspire and connect communities through original, Indigenous film and media arts.

Indigenous Food Circle

This project works with First nations communities in Northern Ontario to develop and implement food plans to build their food security and food sovereignty. Since the onset of Covid-19, IFC has increased their services from supporting 14 First Nations communities to supporting 103 communities.

This includes actions such as bulk purchasing and direct delivery of foods to communities for emergency food supports, scaling up existing food production and wild harvest programs, and building infrastructure to store and share food.

Indigenous Sustenance Reclamation Network

In its inaugural year as a province-wide network, this project connects Indigenous youth from both rural and urban locations across Ontario to teach traditionally-informed food and medicine practices and cultural sustenance skills. These learning opportunities spanned topics such as animal tracking, animal trapping, maple tree tapping, water teachings and ceremonies, ancestral land-dedicated songs, and plant medicines, all of which were led by Indigenous women and Indigenous two-spirit facilitators.

Ojibiikaan

Ojibikaan provides access to land for cultural practices for Indigenous people living in Toronto. They advocate for urban Indigenous visibility, food sovereignty, and urban access to cultural teachings. Their main project in 2019 was facilitating a mobile centre for Indigenous parents and children (ages 0-6), that provided access to cultural practices related to Indigenous food sovereignty.

River Rocks

This project facilitates Indigenous artistic ‘expression sessions’ for Indigenous youth which provide opportunities for them to express themselves through a variety of modern and traditional artistic forms of expression. These expressions manifest in a variety of forms including dancing, written expressions and visual art, often resembling traditional-modern fusion expressions like ‘hip-hop medicine wheel teachings’.

Roots to Harvest

Based in Thunder Bay, this project provides employment training for marginalized Indigenous youth in the field of urban agriculture. They offer young people the opportunity to engage in the food system as growers, market gardeners and lifelong learners and develop skills to support a sustainable livelihood for themselves and their communities. With Harbinger’s support, they expanded their programming in 2019 to include rural outreach programs, where they mentored similar food sovereignty programming with First Nations communities in Thunder Bay’s surrounding regions.

Inuktitut Waiting for Godot

Based in Nunavut, this project is a returning grantee that has been working on the translation of the theatrical production ‘Waiting for Godot’ into the Inuit context. In 2019 they made huge progress in their translations, holding 2 workshops in Southern Ontario, out of which they were able to secure their cast members in the spring, and produce a first draft of the play’s translation in the summer. The production is set to debut in Nunavut and to tour abroad in the near future!

Regalia and Leadership

A return grantee, this project offers pow wow regalia-making workshops to marginalized Indigenous youth in Toronto, in order to foster cultural connection, mentorship and leadership development. This year expanded on previous projects, whereby past participants were mentored and supported to facilitated regalia-making classes in their own communities, with a view to provide them with skills to run their own community programs in the future, and to give them practical experience in passing on traditional knowledge to group settings.

Nimkii Aazhibikong (Onaman Collective)

As a return grantee, this project continued to support an independent Indigenous-led camp that is focused on connecting young people with elders for arts and cultural land-based teachings including language, sustainable Indigenous practices, and restoration of traditional Indigenous land and resource protection and management. In 2019, with Harbinger’s support they were able to build a composting toilet and related infrastructure for their camp.

Six Foot Festival

As a return grantee, this project supported the Six Foot Festival that took place on Manitoulin Island. The festival developed in collaborative engagement with Indigenous communities on the island, exploring and addressing food sovereignty and food sustainability through traditional Anishnabe land based practices and permaculture methods.

Yotuni

This project provides programming to support Indigenous youth in the region surrounding London, Ontario. The programming aims to connect with struggling Indigenous youth by fostering personal expressions through visual art, written expression, and musical programming, alongside traditional Indigenous teachings. Covid-19 has transitioned much of this programming to online format, where a digital hub of creative expressions and cultural teachings are being practiced.

Aki Energy / Meechim Farm

As a return grantee, this project focusses on replacing unhealthy food by growing healthy food on a community farm in Garden Hill First Nation MB, and using that as a community hub to promote healthy food and educate youth. With the support of the Harbinger Foundation, The farm now employs two local people and provides opportunities for youth of various ages to learn about food and be inspired to engage in agriculture and horticulture. They are currently transitioning to become an independent social enterprise.

Canadian Roots Exchange

A return grantee, this project builds bridges between Indigenous and non-Indigenous youth in Canada by facilitating dialogue and strengthening relationships through leadership programs. In 2019 they expanded their National Youth Reconciliation Initiative, hosting cultural events and educational workshops across Canada, as well as launched a social research study to track the state of Reconciliation among Canada’s youth.

IndigenEYEZ

A return grantee based out of BC, this Indigenous designed Creative Empowerment Model provides programming for youth to build confidence and take on a leadership role in their communities. The programming is grounded in land-based learning and Indigenous values that provide youth with an opportunity to connect with their culture and learn from knowledge keepers and elders.

Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN)

As a return grantee, Harbinger provides support for the general operations of the NYSHN, an Indigenous youth-led community based organization providing peer youth outreach for sexual and reproductive health, rights, and justice issues.

Northern Manitoba Food, Culture, and Community Collaborative (NMFCCC)

As a return grantee, this collaborative seeks to improve population health and foster a sense of hope and strength in Northern Indigenous Manitobans. All of this organization’s projects are community-based and focused on increasing access to healthy food, many with a focus on culturally important food. They have connected their work to some of the TRC calls to action, and hosted shared learning calls on the indigenous issues, settler response, and reconciliation.

Ontario Indigenous Youth Partnership Project (OIYPP)

The Harbinger foudations provides operational funding for the OIYPP porject, which provide direct financial, mentorship, and capacity support to Indigenous youth to explore and execute their own ideas and build reciprocal relationships between Indigenous youth and a community of support including individuals, organizations and funders.

Sacred Seeds Collective

A return grantee, this project cultivates 2-spirit Indigenous youth leadership in food sovereignty and food security work in rural, diverse traditional territories. They do so through peer mentorship and hands-on participation in traditional planting methodologies, wild harvesting, sugar bushing, medicine processing, and food and medicine plant distribution in the spirit of honouring Dish with One Spoon Treaty responsibilities.

The Circle

This organization supports a community of Indigenous organizations and funders to work in partnership and learn from one another in the spirit of reconciliation. The Harbinger Foundation provides organizational support to build The Circle’s capacity for promoting Indigenous philanthropy.

Water First

Water First trains Indigenous youth in the fields of water management and water stewardship, with the intention of creating Indigenous water management-based employment in First Nations communities. This is a return grantee that expanded their internship program in 2019 after a successful first year in 2018.