Indigenous People's Month is here!
This is Indigenous People's Month. Some people say it's just one day or a week but I like to think of the whole month as a time for all us to celebrate our Indigenous culture and spirituality. We have compiled a list of all the events that we know of on the CIFRS.ca website.
This month I am volunteering to help organize Aboriginal Awareness Week's Family Day Festival and Pow wow on June 24th so I hope you can come and join us to celebrate together. We will have hand games, activities for children, a pancake breakfast and a BBQ put on by our Rotary Club friends (thanks!), an artisan and a community fair as well as a full pow wow. This event is for everyone so please bring your friends, your kids, your neighbours, your colleagues! It will be 9am-5pm at the Enmax Park at Stampede (new Indian Village location).
This month, I am developing a customized orange shirt for Enbridge. If your organization would like custom orange shirts, please don't wait to contact me about this!
I also have some new products that I'm testing with artwork by Kalum Teke Dan, Gordon Wesley and Delree Dumont. Stay tuned as those become available. I am also still working on a new colouring book with Anishinaabe elder Marilyn Shingoose and Saulteaux artist Tyrone Whitehawk.
With CIF Reconciliation Society, we are keeping things going:
- We had our first Elders Guidance Circle to ask for guidance on some of our strategy questions. We are now sitting with what we learned and will then look at how to improve our activities and planning.
- We traveled with Kaleidoscope to Okotok (the big rock near Okotoks), Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump and Writing on Stone Provincial Park this week to take footage that Blackfoot Language teachers will be able to access in our Blackfoot Language App to help them teach about Blackfoot culture.
- Our mini-galleries exhibit on the theme of "Connecting with the Land" in Rotary Park (Calgary) is available for visit for the rest of June.
- Our Traveling Art Exhibit on Truth & Reconciliation is at the Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Separate School in Lethbridge this month. If your organization would like to host this exhibit, we have one more month slot available in August.
- Our 5th annual Pokaiks the Children will take place on Sept 30th, 2023 from 11am-3pm. Save the date and come to walk with us!