OPEN 7-10PM sun-thu 636 Queens Ave. London
2nd Walk for Mother Earth - Speaking Tour!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
6PM - 9PM
@ Empowerment Resource Centre
Youth Leader to Embark on 2nd Walk for Mother Earth, from Grassy Narrows to Ottawa.
What: 2nd Walk for Mother Earth—Crissy Swain, speaking tour from Grassy Narrows to Ottawa.
Why: To draw attention to links between environmental destruction and the destruction of communities, to open dialogue about protecting and healing the earth, as well as healing communities and the relationships between them.
When + Where: Starting from Grassy Narrows June 15, arriving in Ottawa late July, stopping in communities across Ontario.
This summer, Crissy Swain, a youth leader and mother of three from Grassy Narrows will be embarking on another walk for the Earth. She will be walking from Grassy Narrows to Ottawa, leaving later this month from Grassy Narrows’ traditional territory north of Kenora, arriving at Parliament Hill in late July. This year’s walk seeks to raise dialogue around the inherent links between the destruction of Mother Earth and the ongoing destruction of Indigenous cultures. She will be stopping in communities across the province to talk about protecting and healing the earth, as well as healing communities and the relationships between them.
Last year, Crissy led a group of 22 youth from Grassy Narrows (and a few other First Nations communities), on the Protecting Our Mother Walk—over 1800 kilometres from Grassy Narrows to Toronto—which became a catalyst for the Gathering of Mother Earth Protectors and Sovereignty Sleepover last May at Queens Park, where the message was: no exploitation of Indigenous lands, no criminalisation of land protectors. Crissy has been an integral leader in the Grassy Narrows resistance to logging on their territory and in the empowerment of youth and traditional resurgence of Anishnabe culture that is taking place in their community.
The walk is to be a spiritual journey inspired by dreams and recent incidents. Crissy and Grassy Narrows elder Judy Dasilva visited the site of the Macintosh Residential School near Kenora. There, behind the old school site, instead of a memorial, they found several large hydro towers right at the site of the graves of those children who died at the school, disrespecting their memory. Following the visit, Crissy had dreams telling her that this was to be a symbol of the connection between the destruction of Indigenous lands, and the destruction of their communities.
The recent and ongoing standoff at Akwesasne is a spiritual sign to her that the time for the journey is imminent. She is extending an invitation to other native activists and allies to meet her in Ottawa in late July to tell the federal government that the time is now to protect the Earth, the time is now for healing and reconciliation—between settler and Indigenous communities, and between us and Mother Earth as well.
“The government does not understand that words are not good enough. Talking ‘green’ and making empty apologies that don’t actually deal with real issues is not good enough. We have to protect the land—protect our Mother Earth. I want to tell Harper that apologies are not good enough. Canada needs to give proper respect to the victims, families and survivors of the residential schools. We need Canada to recognize the damage those schools have done to our communities and cultures, and we need an end to the destruction of our lands, and an end to native people being criminalised when they stand up for their rights to protect their lands, their cultures, and their communities.”
-Crissy Swain, June 2009
we will pass the hat and ask for a sliding scale donation of 5-10 dollars.. if you can't that's OK, nobody will be turned away.
POLITICAL DOCS. EVERY THURSDAY!
