FIRST NATIONS SOVEREIGNTY

First Nations in Yukon Territory are the first Indigenous communities in Canada to secure their own soveriegnty and rights of land, culture, organizing, and community. As self-governing Nations, they dealt with numerous governmental and private business bodies who did not necessarily agree with their rights.
I worked almost exclusively for First Nations for 8 years in Yukon Territory.
There, I learnt how old Indigenous wisdom protocols of all my relations respect, responsibility and reciprocity, still apply to create sustainable, equitable, and inclusively vibrant communities.

Projects Included:

The Yukon Regional RoundTable Facilitating 25 Indigenous and Municipal leaders for holistic community development collaborations for 3 years. Case Study Below.
Yukon Land Relationship Commission Facilitating intergovernmental protocols and community engagement with six sovereign First Nations.
Taku River Tlingit Nation, Social Enterprise and Education Strategy, 2 year Facilitation
Hands On Capacity Community Development Training Program. I led Knowledge Mobilization with 5 Nations to create and facilitate this capacity-building program on integrated, cross-sector development and cross-cultural collaboration, 3 year project.

THE YUKON REGIONAL ROUNDTABLE

Facilitator and Director, 2005 – 2008

Relationship-based development was the call of the Yukon Regional RoundTable. This 3 year social innovation experiment with 25 Self-Governing First Nations and municipal leaders from across Yukon Territory collaborated economic, educational, and social development projects across government, enterprise, and civil society sectors.

As Facilitator and Director I ensured we integrated Indigenous collective and emergent processes, including Circle Process, Storytelling situation analysis, and Visual Mapping that enabled consensus strategy and decision-making. I doubled First Nations participation, and I became Territorial spokesperson at the request of First Nation members.

Starting as strangers across historic racial divides, in 3 years the RoundTable members affected millions of dollars in economic development, health, education, social enterprise, infrastructure and social policy improvements, innovating a wide scale of cross-boundary and inter-governmental partnerships. A Social Science and Humanities Research Council project of the Rural Development Institute, Brandon University, Yukon Regional RoundTable collaborations are still impacting policies, initiatives, and reconciliation relationships today.