Learning Opportunities

1) Interfaith Summer Institute at Simon Fraser University, Vancouver, B.C.

The Interfaith Summer Institute at Simon Fraser University is presenting several programs that may be of interest to those seeking a new way for Indigenous and non-Indigenous people to be together.

June 14 Public Forum: "Indigenous Worldviews on Truth and Reconciliation"

August 5-8 Course: "Decolonizing the Body and Indigenous Principles: Connecting through Creativity" with Alannah Young and Denise Nadeau

August 11-15 Course: "Truth and Reconciliation: The Politics and Possibilities of Memory" with Lorena Sekwan Fontaine, Angela Contreras-Chavez, and Chief Robert Joseph

Visit the website for registration information.

2) Returning to Spirit

Returning to Spirit is a program designed to bring reconciliation and healing to the residential school experience by transforming lives, relationships, and communities. The developers of the program, Marc Pizandawatc, an Algonquin, and Sister Ann Thompson, have found a way to help people break through the “stuckness” of being victims and perpetrators, and return to the spirit of who they really are and move forward.

The program is a three-part process that involves an intense week-long reflection by First Nations people in one session, and by church people in another session, before both communities are brought together for conversation, healing, and reconciliation.

At the most recent Returning to Spirit event, held March 27 to April 2, 2008, sixty church and First Nations people met at Queen's House Retreat Centre in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. On the last day, one participant commented that "peace, joy, tranquility, exhilaration, excitement, and gratitude" were very much present in the room.

To learn more, view their brochure [PDF], and email the organizers for current workshop information.