​​The LIRR Leadership Circle offers a number of workshops to help us engage important issues on the path of reconciliation and healing, in order to better understand our sisters and brothers in the Indigenous Communities with whom we share this land. Two of these workshops are currently available in French and English and soon the rest of these workshops will be available in both languages.

 

The workshops are:​

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The Kairos Blanket Exercise (available in French & English)

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Enter with a desire of learning the truth. The truth we were never taught before.

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Exit with a new appreciation and understanding of the history of First Nations, Inuit and later Métis people on these lands now called Canada.

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We invite you to join us and embark on a journey of understanding the truth Indigenous Peoples still live with today and the part we all play in reconciliation.

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About the KAIROS Blanket Exercise

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The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is a powerful experiential teaching and learning tool designed to deepen understanding of the historical and ongoing impacts of colonization on Indigenous peoples in Canada and the world. The Exercise uses blankets to represent the land. It guides participants through key historical events, such as pre-contact, treaty-making, colonization and resistance. This immersive experience helps participants understand the ongoing impacts of these events on Indigenous Peoples.

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The KAIROS Blanket Exercise is available virtually as well, helping to ensure that it reaches remote groups and communities.

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All KAIROS Blanket Exercises are Indigenous-led, with partner facilitators certified through KBE Facilitator Training conducted by Indigenous Instructors who bring years of experience and a wealth of knowledge, ensuring that each exercise honours Indigenous traditions and perspectives.

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The KAIROS Blanket Exercise was initially developed in collaboration with Indigenous Elders and educators to ensure it accurately reflected Indigenous perspectives and experiences. (Read more here: https://kairosblanketexercise.org/)

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Changing Our Mindset​- Decolonizing our thoughts (available in English)​​​

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What are the Characteristics of a “Dominant Culture” and how do they shape our narratives, engagement with each other and the world? 

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Come explore this theme with racialized and non-racialized co-learners in both small and large group work. This workshop will embody experiential learning methodology. 

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Based on “EXPLORING CHARACTERISTICS OF DOMINANT CULTURE” Adapted from Cracking Open White Identity Towards Transformation. 

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Culture is powerful precisely because it is so present and at the same time so very difficult to name or identify. Some of the dominant characteristics of our western culture can be damaging because they are used as norms and standards without being pro-actively named or chosen by a group or community of people. They can be damaging because they promote white supremacy thinking. Because we live in a White supremacy environment, these attitudes and behaviors can show up in any group or organization. 

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One of the purposes of listing characteristics of white supremacy culture is to point out how organizations which unconsciously use these characteristics as their norms and standards make it difficult, if not impossible, to open the door to other cultural norms and standards. As a result, many of our organizations, while saying we want to be intercultural and inclusive, really only allow other people and cultures to come in if they adapt or conform to already existing cultural norms. Being able to identify and name the cultural norms and standards you want is a first step to making room for both decolonized thinking and an intercultural organization.

 

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​​Land/Territorial Acknowledgement, Parts 1 & 2 (available in French & English)

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Wondering about steps your Community of Faith can take to begin to build awareness of and appreciation for Indigenous neighbours and the call to be in right relationship?

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Come be part of a learning time and discussion!

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What does it mean to "Acknowledge the Land/territory?"

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How do you go about it?​

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Indian Act (available in English)

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Indian Act:

• What is it?

• Why should we care?

 

Join us for a time of learning, dialogue and relationship building.​​​

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Doctrine of Discovery (available in English)

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What is the Doctrine of Discovery?

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The Doctrine of Discovery is a legal principle from the 15th century that justified European colonization by claiming sovereignty over Indigenous lands upon "discovery," backed by papal bulls and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

 

“The Doctrine of Discovery is a legal principle that European countries extinguished Indigenous sovereignty and acquired the underlying title to Indigenous Peoples’ lands upon ‘discovering’ them.” (First People’s Law).

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The Doctrine of Discovery is inspired by racist 15th century papal bulls dividing up “uncivilized” Indigenous lands for European powers. It became a legal principle through United States Supreme Court decisions of the 1820s and 1830s (the “Marshall Decisions”). It made its way into Canadian law in the 1880s through the St. Catherine’s Milling decision. 

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While it has been repudiated around the world, the Supreme Court of Canada has grounded its interpretation of section 35 of the constitution on the dubious and racist legal principles that underlay the Doctrine of Discovery. The often-used phrase ‘assertion of Crown sovereignty’ is a Canadian euphemism for the Doctrine of Discovery.  

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The continued centrality of the Doctrine of Discovery to modern Canadian Aboriginal law is the source of many Indigenous people’s rejection of the Canadian legal system and government policies on ‘reconciliation’.

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Come learn about how this ideology continues to impact many of our laws today.

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For more information, or to schedule a workshop, please contact:  rightrelationsnakonhaka@gmail.com

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