Kana Wain Dida Conference

Featuring Speaker: Dr. Jennifer Denetdale, Navajo Nation, Professor, University of New Mexico

Jennifer Nez Denetdale is a citizen of the Navajo Nation. She is professor of American Studies and a historian. She is the author of Reclaiming Dine’ History: The Legacies of Navajo Chief Manuelito and Juanita (University of Arizona Press), two Navajo histories for young adults and numerous articles and essays. She is the chair of the Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission.

Featuring Speakers: Dr. Barry Lavallee, Métis, St. Laurent, Manitoba, CEO of Keewatinohk  Inniniw Minoayawin Inc., Dr. Ojistoh Horn, Mohawk, Kahnawake, Dr. Nel Wieman, Anishinaabe, Little Grand Rapids, Manitoba, Acting Deputy Chief Medical Officer for the First Nations Health Authority & President of the Indigenous Physicians Association of Canada

Dr. Barry Lavallee, Dr. Ojistoh Horn and Dr. Nel Wieman discuss the complexities of the pandemic and provide insight on policy, health inequalities, and Indigenous Peoples’ health.  

Featuring Speakers: Alex McDougall, Laurie Ducharme, Byron Beardy, Grace McDougall & Jim Harrold

This session highlights the unique circumstances of fly-in Indigenous communities during COVID-19 as well as some of the proactive emergency planning and other responses these communities and Arrows Regional Health Authority (FARHA) has achieved over the last 15 months. The Four (FARHA) is governed by the four Island Lake Anishininew Nations, and was created to help improve health outcomes in northern Manitoba. These Nations include Garden Hill, Red Sucker Lake, St Theresa Point and Wasagamack. These same communities were the intended recipients of the highly controversial body-bag responses.

Featuring Speakers: Diane Redsky, Executive Director of Ma Mawi Wi Chi Itata Shavon Dayrock, Community Outreach, Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin,  Hollow Water First Nation Doris Difarnecio, Colombian American biracial lesbian sociologist, educator and theatre director woman

Surging rates of gender-based violence was one of the least addressed fallouts from this pandemic, as well as those from the past. This panel talks about the ways in which this pandemic has intensified the violence being experienced by women in many countries, with a focus on Indigenous women and LGBTQ2S people.

Featuring Speaker: Vasna Ramasar, Global Tapestry Alternatives

In this session, Vasna shares experiences and collectively explores how communities in different parts of the world have built resilience in the face of the multiple impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic (on health, food security, housing, community cohesion, etc.), and the grassroots alternatives that have emerged during that time through a series of stories shared by community representatives.

Featuring Speaker: Minket Lepcha

Minket Lepcha shares community stories of the River Teesta and Mountain Khanchendzonga. She takes listeners through these mountains and rivers and helps connect with the forest inside the listener’s mind and shares local traditional knowledge with future generations. Minket also shares her recent project helping youth (re)connect with their Lepcha identity through diverse mediums of storytelling.

Featuring Speaker: Celine Cousteau, Los Angeles, USA

Director of Tribes on the Edge, Céline Cousteau explores the timely topics of land threats, health crises, and human rights issues of Indigenous Peoples in the Vale do Javari Indigenous territory in Brazil, expanding the view to how this is relevant to our world. Céline shares her experiences visiting the Amazon rainforest and her plans for future projects. 

Featuring Speakers: Débora Boratto, UFMG Brazil, Dr. Alex Wilson, University of Saskatchewan, & Asfia Kamal, University College of the North

The WHO considers shelter as an essential determinate of health. Even so, many Indigenous communities in Canada suffer from housing insecurity. This paper panel uses the Muskrat Hut case study to show how a community-led project about housing and sanitation can be integrated to traditional Indigenous knowledge, sustainability and social justice. 

Featuring Speakers: Caroline Turner, Paige Wall, & Michelle Hoeber

This panel discusses some of the benefits and challenges associated with setting up clinics and providing services virtually. Discussion includes how to facilitate in-person care when required and the future of virtual care post-pandemic.

Featuring Speakers: Dr. Joanna Black, University of Manitoba, Dr. Pam Patterson, & Daniel Payne OCAD University

Discussion with panel of artists, educators, curriculum specialists, and researchers in art and design education that focused on their activities as artists, educators, curriculum specialists, and researchers in art and design education in times of COVID-19. Discussion includes a look at anthropogenic and pandemic/epidemic and potentially post-colonial literature underrepresented in art education and some “fictional” practices. 

Featuring Speakers: Joseph Atoyebi & Ying Kong, University College of the North

This presentation draws from selected works by University College of the North (UCN) Indigenous student writers published in the special issue to explore some of their coping mechanisms to cope with the new normal occasioned by COVID-19. Their coping mechanisms have unique elements that sets them apart from other students facing similar difficulties around the world. 

Featuring Speakers: Taylor Galvin & Dylan Kensick, Kis Kin Ha Ma Ki Win

Learning Science through Land presents on the importance of land-based education, especially during Covid-19. The presentation discusses how communities are transitioning from classroom learning to land learning, how we can help, how working with researchers and students from the University of Manitoba can help mitigate environmental degradation caused by industry, and what types of resources are being developed to help your community run a successful land-based education program.

This session brings together Indigenous performers from around the world to share their culture with us. The session includes a variety of presenters and performers from across North America that sing, dance, drum and more. 

Featuring Speaker: Dr. Rawiri Taonui, Māori, New Zealand, Independent Writer, Researcher and Advisor

Dr Taonui was the first Professor of Indigenous Studies in New Zealand. He was a Professor of Māori and Indigenous Studies and Head of the School of Māori Art, Knowledge and Education at Massey University and the Head of the School of Māori & Indigenous Studies at the University of Canterbury. Rawiri is a well-known political commentator and writer. He has written and delivered over 750 features, columns, articles, documentaries and conference presentations and won nine writing awards. Rawiri has presented papers at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (New York) and the UN Experts Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Geneva) and was co-editor of Conversations About Indigenous Rights: The UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People and Aotearoa New Zealand (2017) evaluating the 10th Anniversary of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Dr Taonui has been one of the principal Māori commentators and writers on the Covid-19 Pandemic in New Zealand. He is the Principal Advisor to the National Iwi Leaders Chairs Forum Pandemic Response Group (covering the main 76 tribal groups), an Advisor to the Office of the Kingitanga and Ngā Marae Tōpū (this includes the leadership of 65 traditional communities in the Waikato-Tainui area) and an Advisor to Te Kahu o Taonui (the tribal collective representing the seven main tribes in Northland).

Featuring Speakers: Tristen Durocher, Ali Barnaby, Curtis Vinish & Vincent Short 

This panel focuses on what youth are experiencing with regards to education, leisure, mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. Youth reflect on their current situation, and what they have been engaged with since the start of the pandemic, and if now is the time to make meaningful changes to approaches to education and community.

Featuring Speakers: Diane Redsky, Byron QJ & Beardy Redsky Campbell 

Vaccines have emerged as an important and highly effective public health response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, many are also hesitant about this technology, especially with Black and Indigenous and other people of colour (BIPOC). This session highlights some successful vaccine programmes focused on urban and on-reserve Indigenous populations, to assess some of the cultural and political dimensions of their use on the front lines in Canada, and to explore traditional Indigenous responses to Covid – in combination with or in isolation of vaccines. 

Featuring Speaker: Joseph Roan, Hatsumomo Designs 

Join Social Distance Powwow Artist of the year Joseph Roan, Hatsumomo designs, for an evening of beading and sharing at the Kana Wain Dida – Virtual International Gathering. Joseph will be live, beading and chatting, sharing stories and comedic relief. 

Featuring Speakers: Integral Ecology Group and Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin 

This panel discussion includes unique perspectives from a university professor, a community researcher, stewardship and community development managers, and social science consultants on their first-hand experiences of supporting and engaging community members in research during the pandemic. The conversation ranges from practical solutions for remotely engaging community members in research, to best practices, and lessons learned.

Featuring Speakers: Pam Grenier, Dora Simmons, Candace Linklater, Steve Berens, Mike Gibson, Helene Estrada (Southeast Resource Development Council Corp. – Health Services)

In Ojibwe, Ganawendamaw means to take care of, and to protect. Through stories and statistics, this panel aims to share SERDC Health Services experience with supporting 8 member First Nations to undertake Covid-19 response efforts and to take care of and protect their communities from ongoing illness and population-level health impacts as caused by Covid-19. The session walks you through experiences of Covid-19 and the response that led to positive outcomes for SERDC health services and First Nations partners.

Featuring Speakers: Shavon Dayrock (Hollow Water First Nation), Craig Dietrich (Independent Software Developer) & Shanna Lorenz (Occidental College) 

In this interactive workshop participants are introduced to and engage with the phone app, “Covid-19 Indigenous,” developed as part of the Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin project. The project was created in response to the current pandemic by an indigenous-led team of researchers from the University of Manitoba and Occidental College in Los Angeles, the app allows First Nations Health Directors to collect real-time date from their communities by distributing multi-media surveys via smart phones and/or local area networks.

Featuring Speakers: Dr. Asfia Gulrukh Kamal, River Johnson (University College of the North); Northern Manitoba Food Culture and Community Collaborative Join Dr. Asifa Gulrukh, Rover Jonson and Northern Manitoba Food Culture & Community Collaborative (NMFCCC)

This session focuses on sharing stories of strength and resilience through case studies from different northern Manitoba Aboriginal communities and issues they face related to health and food sovereignty.

Featuring Speakers: AMUPAKIN (Asociación de Mujeres Parteras Kichwas del Napo) & Community Engaged-Learning, University of Manitoba

This presentation includes the showing and discussion of a mini-documentary developed by AMUPAKIN. AMUPAKIN is a community of Kichwa midwives that offers birthing and traditional Indigenous health services in the Amazon region of Napo in Ecuador in collaboration with Community Engaged-Learning, at the University of Manitoba. The focus is on three experiences where COVID-19 patients were healed with the use of traditional Kichwa medicine.

Featuring Speakers: Victoria Grima (University of Manitoba), Emily Unger (Kitatipithitamak Mithwayawin)

This presentation intends to highlight the challenges perceived during the collection of COVID-19 data pertaining to Indigenous Nations across Canada. The presentation is followed by a question-and-answer period, where participants are encouraged to share their experiences on the subject-in-question together with the lack of critical accessibility to information on community health and well-being during these high-level health risk events.

Featuring Speaker: Senator Mary Jane McCallum, Cree, Barren Lands First Nation, Manitoba, Senate of Canada

Mary Jane McCallum is a Cree woman from the Barren Lands First Nation in Brochet, Manitoba. Her husband, Ron Phillips, is a professor at Nipissing University and her two daughters, Courtenay and Keeley Phillips, are both lawyers, one working in Saskatchewan and the other in British Columbia. In 2016, Mary Jane reunited with her son, Jonathan, whom she gave up for adoption in 1975. In the reconnection to her son and his family, Mary Jane is learning the importance of stepping softly, choosing her words carefully, and respecting their sacred space. Mary Jane uses their sacred reconnection as an example of reconciliation. She wishes to thank Jonathan’s family, especially his mother and father, for being parents who loved, kept him safe and prepared him for his journey on earth. Mary Jane started her career in the dental field as a dental assistant in 1973. Mary Jane then received her dental nursing diploma in 1977, dental therapy diploma in 1979, and her dental degree from the University of Manitoba’s Faculty of Dentistry in 1990. Mary Jane spent most of the past forty-eight years providing dental services and treatment to First Nations in Manitoba as a dental nurse, dental therapist and dentist. From 1996-2000, she worked as the Regional Dental Officer for the province of Manitoba. In 2000, she worked as an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Dentistry at the University of Manitoba. Yet, her passion always remained working with Indigenous people in the community-based setting. After nearly five decades in the dental field, Mary Jane has recently retired from dentistry. Mary Jane went to the Guy Hill Residential School in Manitoba from 1957–1968. Mary Jane continues to present to school children, university students, academics, and communities about residential school. She believes that Canada must never forget the genocide of their Original Peoples and that lateral and vertical violence against Indigenous Peoples still exists today; a result of sustained governmental policies. On Dec. 2, 2017, Mary Jane was appointed to the Senate of Canada as a representative of the province of Manitoba. She assumed this mantle with reconciliation top of mind, recognizing its importance for Canada if we are to be recognized as human rights leaders. Mary Jane supports the ongoing resistance, resurgence and rebirth of Indigenous sovereignty. In recognizing and reclaiming our own autonomy, she believes that Indigenous Peoples are well on our journey towards reclaiming our spirit and power. As one Elder had told her: “Our children and grandchildren will climb on our shoulders as we did with our ancestors.”

Featuring Speakers: Isaac Murdoch – Ojibway, Serpent River, First Nation, Storyteller and Traditional Knowledge Holder Louis Bird – Omushkego First Nation, Peawanuck, Ontario; Storyteller and Traditional Knowledge Holder 

Two Storytellers and Traditional Knowledge Holder; Isaac Murdoch, Ojibway from Storyteller and Traditional Knowledge Holder from Serpent River, First Nation and Louis Bird, Omushkego First Nation, Peawanuck, Ontario share their knowledge and teachings. 

Featuring Speakers: Keshab Thapa – Bagale Thapa clan of the Kshatriya caste, Nepal Onel Masardule – Guna Yala territory of Panama Alejandro Argumedo – Quechua, Peru; Director of the Association ANDES 

The Global Indigenous Panel shares different experiences of COVID-19 around the world. This panel also reflects on the differences and similarities among Indigenous Peoples in different regions. Participating in this panel were panelists representing the Bagale Thapa clan of the Kshatriya caste, Nepal, the Guna Yala territory of Panama, and the Quechua Peoples of Peru. 

Featuring Speakers: Dr. Sheri-Ann Daniels – Maui, Hawaii Geraldine McManus – Dakota, Long Plains, Manitoba Shavon Dayrock – Hollow Water First Nation, Manitoba 

The COVID-19 pandemic affected Indigenous communities around the world. Yet, little was known about the nature of these impacts or how these communities had responded, and how these responses had varied in different regions of Canada, and the world. This session highlighted some of the similarities and differences in community experience around the world, and examined to what degree these reflected a shared colonial legacy, and explored what might be done to better support communities.

Featuring Speakers: Tina Miller, (Patient Partner Patient Voices Network), Hélène Campbell (Patient Partner, Health Standards Organization), & Cathy Almost (Engagement Leader, BC Patient Safety & Quality Council)

During this co-designed session, speakers explore lessons learned and strategies for facilitating authentic, safe, and culturally appropriate online engagement in a time that was critical for the health care system to listen, learn, and collaborate with Indigenous communities as well as face multiple public health crises.

Featuring Speakers: Okihtcitawak Patrol Group

This session looks at the origin, role, and realities of the Okihtcitawak Patrol Group. This Saskatchewan based group shared stories about how they adjusted during the pandemic times, their experiences in becoming their own entity, a non-profit organization, and how they began operating within a harm reduction framework.

Featuring Speakers: Laura Forsythe (University of Manitoba) 

Hear from the Metis Inclusion Coordinator at the University of Manitoba in a round table discussion to exchange ideas and highlight the initiatives undertaken since March 2020, their impact on the community, and the Metis nation’s role. As we approach the second year in isolation, a dialogue of ways forward and best practices within community partnerships occurs. 

Featuring Speaker: Julio Lucchesi Moreas (Université de Saint Boniface)

This paper panel was presented by Julio Lucchesi, Researcher from Wa Ni Ska Tan – An Alliance of Hydro Impacted Communities, University of Saint Boniface. Julio shares and reflects on Community and Emergency Preparedness Planning; Food Security and Sovereignty; Community Resourcefulness and Governance; and also examines the economic impacts Manitoba Hydro has had on Indigenous communities. This session also looks at how Hydro revenues might be shared more equitably among First Nation Communities and the Provincial Government.