Students of the Salish Sea, Sunday March 31, 2019

9:15 AM.  Join us as Izzi Lavallee talks about the Students for the Salish Sea, a student organization at Western.  Izzi is a student activist and community organizer at WWU, studying Watershed Resilience. She is a co-founder of Students for the Salish Sea and is committed to water, equity, and environmental justice by seeking long term strategies to heal trans-boundary watersheds.  The student organization collectively envisions a diverse, healthy biological and cultural watershed of the Salish Sea. In this vision, we acknowledge that we are guests on this land and take an active role in redressing the continuing impact of settler colonialism and support the indigenous-led movements in our communities. Throughout this watershed, we are committed to establishing SFSS club branches at universities, colleges, and schools. Within each group we work locally to affect change, thereby positively impacting our transnational watershed as a whole. We collaborate with our other university branches on watershed-wide issues to cultivate lasting change through a diversity of tactics.  

Unist'ot'en Camp: Stop the Pipelines, March 24, 2019

9:15 AM.  Join us as Andrew Eckels talks about what’s happening with the Unisto’ot’en camp. Andrew Eckels has lived in Bellingham as a settler on Coast Salish territory for the last 7 years working on environmental and social justice issues. He has been working to support the Unist'ot'en camp since first spending time there in 2013.

Over the years, BUF has supported the Unist'ot'en Camp and its advocates, particularly Western University students who have devoted an enormous amount of their resources helping construct the Camp. The Unis’tot’en (C’ihlts’ehkhyu / Big Frog Clan) are the original Wet’suwet’en Yintah Wewat Zenli distinct to the lands of the Wet’suwet’en in British Columbia, Canada and have been constructing dwellings and community centers on land targeted by Coastal Gaslink (CGL) for gas pipelines.  The Unist'ot'en Camp has become Canada’s Standing Rock with non-violent protestors blocking and opposing construction through unceded, traditional indigenous territories.  Recently the Royal Mounted Canadian Police have moved in to break up Unist’ot’en and other camps along the route, allowing for Coastal Gaslink heavy equipment to begin preparing for construction.  What’s happening now and where do we go from here?

Truth and Reconciliation, March 17 2019

During this presentation, Shirley will provide an indigenous perspective of what the Truth and Reconciliation movement is and why it is so critical to the future of indigenous communities. Truth and Reconciliation is a movement bringing together indigenous and non-indigenous communities to engage in dialogues and actions that strive to heal trauma, address inequities, and restore, protect and preserve indigenous lifeways. It is a multifaceted movement that addresses many intersectional issues, while working to dismantle systems of domination and oppression.

We’re expecting to have draft copies of a to be proposed BUF resolution on Truth and Reconciliation to hand out and Shirley will also be joining BUF at GA this year in a workshop on Truth and Reconciliation that has been approved by GA!

Sixteen years ago, Shirley Williams became a licensed nurse.  Those years were spent working within the scope of western licensure.  Now, like a salmon swimming upstream, she is focused on what she considers Indigenous Public Health.  Her passion for holistic healthcare of ancient times began when she started to work for her own community, Lummi Nation.  

Lummi Youth Canoe Journey with Becky Kinley, March 10, 2019, 9:15 am

Becky Kinley serves as the Youth Leadership Manager under the Lummi System of Care Expansion Initiative. The Lummi Youth Canoe Family is for Lummi youth between the ages of 13-21 to engage in our culture by preparing for the annual canoe journey and/or international cultural exchange opportunities’. Our desire is to learn who we are as Lummi People and our strong Lummi values; while protecting, promoting, and preserving our Schelangen (Way of Life). 

As youth, we are empowering youth and communities around us to stand up their rights and being the voice of the next generation. The Lummi Youth Canoe Family is fiscally sponsored by the Lummi Nation Service Organization. the Lummi Nation Service Organization is a tribally chartered non-profit since 1996 who’s mission is to Strengthen the people through cultural, social, and economical abundance with hopes that we will empower our people Nilh Xwenang Tse Schelangen (This is our way of life) a healthy, giving, and prosperous community.