 You know, I, I'm the, the, the Kairos black actress as global and newcomer coordinator. And that's how I relate to, to, you know, to Kairos. But prior to that I came in, in the mid 80s as the refugee from Franco's Catalan from Alzheimer. When you, when you are forced to, you know, leave your land for whatever reason, and I put an emphasis on forced, you know, to leave your land. From that moment on you become, you know, a refugee, right. And, and that's, you know, how I came to, to, to Canada and then from that moment on I've been working with newcomer communities from, from many different parts of the world. I also became more aware of my own roots. Once I was here in Canada and I was able to witness the first Maya ceremony here in Toronto and I thought it took, you know, for me to become a refugee and to come to Toronto to actually participate in my very first in Maya ceremony when there were, there are Maya communities just, you know, maybe an hour from, from what I was born. Not even, not even 100 kilometers away from what I was born, but my whole life that loss of culture that's a lot of loss of tradition that loss of land loss of language, which indigenous people from around the world continue to experience around this is pretty much part of that journey as a refugee, you know, in this part. I always often said to people that I don't think, you know, this is a work that you do only one day or two days or a year or two years, this is a lifelong commitment and this is probably going to be beyond our lifetime. But I'm just so glad and thank you so much to each and every one of you for taking the time to connect with us and I'm looking forward to, to more conversations like this. I'm going to leave it there and I'm going to give the introduction to Connie who is the other kind of staff who is also participating in this indigenous and newcomer friendships. So Connie. Thank you very much, Alfredo. I'm speaking in Filipino or in Tagalog because that's where I'm originally from. I was just saying, thank you very much and welcome to the webinar. As a newcomer. Well, first of all, just following, you know, Alfredo's introduction. My being here in Canada is also forced. I left the country with my family because of political persecution and this was during the markets time. When I arrived in late 1989, and I attended the International Human Rights Training Program at University of Ottawa. That was also the height of the OCA crisis. And, you know, hearing all the news and listening to indigenous peoples who are speaking, who are speaking to us and giving us, you know, an orientation of the history of, you know, colonialism in Canada and how it impacted them. It transported me to where I came from when, you know, we're also victims of colonization, colonialization, how, you know, the colonizers imposed their culture to my four, my great-grandfathers. And military station happened and, you know, being prevented from having to speak in your language and being, you know, seen as barbarians or an educated, illiterate and so forth. So when I was, when we were, you know, at the training in Ottawa, it just clicked on me. This is where I, you know, left the country because of the military attack on indigenous communities, on poor communities, on people who are asserting their rights to land, asserting their rights to, you know, to access resources and so forth. So I was telling my classmates at the training, I said, we are human rights workers. What are we doing? And what should we do? Like, you know, there is a community being, you know, going to be attacked, military forces are going to be sent. Are we just sitting here and contented and learning, you know, the international human rights conventions and so forth. So to make this story short, we organized a rally. We walked from University of Ottawa to the parliament and told the government that sending the military is not the right answer. It's really looking at the root cause of the problem and responding and addressing that, you know, the root cause of, you know, the conflict. And so that was my very first introduction to indigenous communities and situation here in Canada that, you know, it showed me it's not different from where I came from. And from then on, there's this feeling, this passion of building relationships with indigenous communities and sharing the same experiences of colonialization and finding common grounds in terms of, you know, how do we support and strengthen each other when, you know, when it's about fighting for land, fighting for water, fighting for, you know, stewardship of the earth. As the migrant justice, well, before being the migrant justice coordinator of Kairos, I was coordinating also the ecological justice program. And with Ed, we visited, I visited some indigenous communities. And my first visit was the Lubica Nation in, you know, Peace River and so forth. And again, it opened my eyes in terms of the real condition of indigenous communities. Later on, I, you know, I visited other communities and the passion to build relationships and stand side by side in asserting the right to land, the right to water, the right to access, you know, has been and continues to be, you know, with me. So just in terms of where I'm coming from, that's where I come from. And I'm just so honored and grateful to be with Kairos and being able to do this work. Not because I'm paid to do it, but it's part of, you know, the commitment to passion and protecting people's rights. So again, thank you for being with us and I leave it to Krista. Thank you so much for that Connie. What a what a great segue really. You know, it really is about our passion for social justice work. That brings us to this gathering here online, but also, you know, in in trying times such as these. It's important to raise up social justice work like this when we can that human rights piece is so big and will continue to be so big we've all seen those headlines. But in the spirit of keeping things concise and on on the agenda, I'm going to welcome you once more to the newcomer and indigenous friendship web chat. And we have, we're going to offer it over to Alfredo to kind of give us a little bit more insight into what is the newcomer and indigenous friendship initiative. Thank you Krista. I just wanted to add that the introduction indeed wasn't Spanish that was actually not what which is the language that I was told growing up, you know that that was something from the past that it was dead that nobody else spoke the language which but it's not true it's pretty much alive, and our communities are there and the elders are actually bringing back the language and the ceremonies and that's where I was able to bring instruments and all sorts of different things that they gave me so as a reminder where I come from. And I wanted to, I just add a little bit just to give you a little bit of background on why, you know, why we're doing this. The indigenous and newcomer friendship is part of Cairo's effort to contribute to Justin inclusive Canada, building the Justin inclusive Canada through dialogue through reflection through getting together bringing together indigenous and newcomers communities. But not just to engage in dialogue and reflection and we also want to get to want to get to know one another we want to learn from each other. We want to have fun together I remember one of the places where we did. It actually was the very first indigenous and newcomer friendship event gathering that we had in in St. Mary's First Nation in just just you know what is also known as Fredericton right and you know we did talk about some of the easiest affecting the indigenous people in the region. And we did talk also about some of these is affecting the newcomers that came to that event, but above all we have a lot of fun we did have a lot of fun, you know we ate together we listen to music we we saw people dancing telling stories and so on and to me that was very important because we build those relationships by sharing our cultures and and you know I could tell you a lot of anecdotes from that one single event, but we are going to to hopefully have other opportunities to go into more details about you know the events we did one in Fredericton we did one in Winnipeg we did one in North Bay we did one in Edmonton. And of course we did you know a lot of events here in in in in Toronto as well. I also want to acknowledge at this point that that you know some of the people who registered to I don't know if everybody's here in fact not everybody who register is here and I know that for a fact. But in some of the registration there were people from Newfoundland and there are people from BC, which is great because we couldn't have you know representation from right across Turtle Island. And that's what we try to do we try to build these connections. We do have a history, you know we do share a history of colonization as Connie mentioned before. You know, many communities newcomer communities in you know here in in in Turtle Island. When we arrived here we learned about Canada as a state and we learned everything about Canada in terms of the Canadian history of. You name it who was the first Prime Minister who what are the political parties of Canada, and so on so forth which is important to learn I'm not saying it's not important. But what I'm saying is that equally we should be learning also who were the first people of the night, who were here before everybody else came and we don't learn that it takes efforts like this actually to be able to connect with with with, you know with people and then learn. I think we want to see this happening more of an institutional level, but that's again you know work for us that we want we're not going to solve everything in the first in one hour that we have. Again, I just wanted to emphasize how important it is and hopefully we will be able to meet again and get to know one another a little bit more for those of you who are on with us through this web chat now. We would love to hear from you there is a chat there that you can use send us a questions if you have in an ideal world, you know our introduction will be very short, and we will give you more space for you to to actually speak. This is our first session and so bear with us, but I want to encourage you to to put your hand up there if you know how to do it, or just send us a questions and question and we'll try to answer that. So, let's try to have some fun. I'm going to pass it on to Connie now. Yeah, I was, I was just, I'm going to talk a little bit or briefly on, you know, why is it important now to build and to have this friendship relationship between Indigenous communities, Indigenous peoples and newcomers. And I would say it's not, it's not limited to that it should be actually a tribe people relationship. So we're talking about settlers newcomers and Indigenous communities Indigenous peoples. The first friendship event that you did in in in Frederick time that Alfredo mentioned. We started with a panel, you know, from from a settler from an Indigenous, you know, from actually Mary Brooks was the one who spoke. And, and, and also Roland Moreno from a Philippi leader of the Philippine community there and what was very profound and really struck me was, you know, the sharing of, of his three speakers, starting from, you know, Roland who said that, you know, when they arrived, they didn't know anything about the culture, the history of Canada, the situation of Indigenous peoples and communities. And so, since they're faced with the challenges of integrating and economic needs and so forth, there is the vacuum where, you know, there was no efforts or they didn't know how to start their relationship. And, and Mary Brooks said that, you know, well, when people started to come, we welcome you, we welcome them, but they have to respect our culture, our access to resources, our lands, our rivers, our waters, like do not, you know, do not come and take this away from us. So, so listening to that, that is the very important essence of what the relationship about, you know, mutual respect, recognizing that we all come from different backgrounds, we all come from different cultures, that no culture is, you know, super or above the other. And this is important, you know, in building that relationship. And currently, why now? Why is it important now? We are facing, you know, this pandemic. The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting all of us, but then we have to recognize that, you know, the degree of impact is different to different communities. And we can just imagine how it's like, you know, in an indigenous community where access to clean water is, you know, is not there, that many communities are still on, you know, boil water advisory. When, when communities are, you know, facing the pandemic, but at the same time, defending their lands from the incursion of mining, you know, mining projects or other mega projects. And, and I guess, friendship, friendship, relationship that's built on mutual, you know, respect and mutual understanding. And that can only, you know, that can only happen when we really learn and understand the culture or, you know, the needs and the impacts of, you know, colonization. Either we bring it or we were victims and we come and to the communities who are also reeling from that experience. So I would say, and I really, you know, appreciate being part of this web chat, because as a newcomer, I still, having been here for 30 years, I still consider myself a newcomer because there's so much to learn. And so much relationships to build. So I'm, there's more to do. And this is just the beginning and I hope, you know, others who are in the room as well, you know, can share their experiences at some point during this webinar or maybe next one. Thank you, Connie. You know, I think it's, it is a new perspective to think about the challenge of newcomers having, you know, one, this obligation, this legal obligation to learn so much so quickly about your, the new home. And then there's this whole other layer that's not necessarily evident, or, you know, you hear about respecting Indigenous peoples in different, you know, documents and things like that. But one, one of the comments we've heard are where are all the Indigenous people I hear about them but I don't see them. And, you know, or they, they hear, you know, only kind of like the sound bite pieces on the news. So it's, it's really, you know, for this Earth Day, and like you said, with what we're dealing with, as a, as a globe, as a global pandemic. This Earth Day is a very special one. And it's unique in what it is that we're all looking at. For myself as an Indigenous person, I didn't really learn much about my own family history or my own Indigenous identity until I was an adult. Because there was so many challenges that I had to overcome as a young person, whether it was homelessness, you know, or as a single parent trying to navigate housing insecurity, or things, you know, whatever obstacles those might have been, I wasn't able to really embrace my own identity. And even now, because I am a white-coded Indigenous person, there's, there's always this importance to centre my voice in a certain way because it is different of a person of colour and how they would experience it. But at the same time, for Indigenous Canadians, race-shifting is a huge issue where, you know, it's, it's kind of a newer internal, seemingly internal piece, but we're starting to understand more that that's why we have to talk about our lived experiences. And that's why we have to talk about where we come from and where we've been. As an Indigenous person, I knew nothing about the colonial history of other nations. I still remember the day that I put it together and I thought, wow, we're the first peoples here on Turtle Island, but there's a whole world out there, and there are first peoples everywhere. And it was a little embarrassing because it had never occurred to me. But then you start to see the bigger picture and how, when we look at resource extraction, like with this Earth Day and with this pandemic, you know, there's certain projects that are still going ahead or there's still man camps doing work or there's still construction being done. When those people should maybe be at home, but just like everyone else, we've got to take care of our families, right? When we look at those extractive places and actions and things happening, we know that Indigenous bodies are the ones putting, you know, defense and protection out there with their bodies. So I really appreciate what you had said about how important it is to come together and to talk about those commonalities, those issues that we share, whether it's access to water, like we know the Navajo Nation right now is really being crippled by the COVID virus. The majority of the community does not have running water, running drinking water, drinkable water. My own community that's only 30 minutes away doesn't, like they have boil water advisories and they kind of come off and on. I have a cousin, my first cousin and she supports herself by teaching about culture and she goes to very remote Northern communities to teach about singing and being proud of your identity and, you know, trying to kind of unpack some of that harm. And she went to a community that is considered one of the communities who have had their drinking water issues resolved. It had the bans lifted and, you know, without getting too deep into politics, a certain political party is very proud in saying we've fixed the water in this community. And right when all of this COVID virus was breaking, she fell ill with mercury and E. Coli poisoning from drinking water at the hotel because she was told that was safe. And she's a single parent of three. And she's that's how she supports herself. So it's really before the virus had called non essential workers kind of home. She's already physically crippled to the point where it's going to impact her for the rest of her life. Not to mention the care that she's able to offer her children, one of whom is quite disabled. So, you know, this this Earth Day, thinking about those commonalities like water and health care access and reading about micro workers who are refusing to do their own groceries in town because why should they accept more risk. They're already coming in to a community with a lot of cases so Yeah, it's a lot to think about but it is also a real blessing to be able to come together and and look at all of the faces that are here and invested in in building friendships and understanding those commonalities. It's, it's wonderful to meet with everyone here and I'm just going to open up the space a little bit for anyone who does want to share. Yeah it may seem strange to some of you but in fact I am a newcomer. I came in 1978. I was previously living in the States and before that I was in England. When I came into the United Church, I was appointed to two pastoral charges. They were both on the Bruce Peninsula. One was lion's head, which was a thoroughly Anglo-Saxon community. And the other was Cape Croca. And they were spanned there. And so I had this experience, more or less every every Sunday of going from one community into the other of preparing a sermon which had to be considerably new to both communities and often ended up saying rather different things to both communities. And I can remember the shock I had when I came as a person who knew very little about Canada, to discover that there was a first world and there was a third world in Canada. And the very depressed and if I may say the kind of demoralized situation that was existing on Cape Croca. Fortunately I'd been involved in other activities before coming. I was involved in the civil rights movement when I was in the States previously and also in the anti-apartheid movement when I was living in England. So I was aware of the disparities that there were between first world and third world situations. So that was my beginning here. And the other thing I noticed when I went to the reserve, which really kind of brought things home for me, was that the only stone buildings on the reserve were the churches, were the school buildings, and the Indian Agents House. There wasn't an Indian agent of course at that time, but the Indian Agents House was still there. So it was very clear that the majority society had decided that their presence was going to be a permanent strong controlling presence amongst this people. So that's what I'd like to contribute. Thank you so much, Mervyn. That's a real visual image to take in absolutely. When I think about my reserve right now, I think about the buildings and which ones are in what shape and such. And it does certainly give a moment of pause to do that kind of thinking. I remember when I learned how the Indian Agents were transitioned into, or sort of the residential school staff and Indian Agents were many of the more offered positions in child welfare. So it's part of that morph and that systemic piece that's in Canada. And the other item that just comes in my mind, which I would like to show again has always stayed with me and it was the my introduction to being aware of residential schools. I used to go and visit an elderly lady by the name of Betty Padona quit. She spent most of her time making quill baskets. And she was she was very gentle and retiring kind of person. And anyway, somehow the subject of schooling came up. And she mentioned about residential schools and I knew nothing about residential schools. But she was describing how that she went there with her sister. And she said to me, even when we were in the playground, we could not speak to each other in a different way. And then have her face really hardened with a lot of anger and a lot of distress. And she said to me, I don't know why they didn't cut out our tongues. And that that statement really brought home to me and has always remained with me. illustrating the kind of terrible oppression and brutality that went on in those places. I have correct myself, like for some moment there I had a, I had a blackout and I mixed up names. We were at the St. Mary's community in Frederickton and it was Alma Brooks, who was the elder grandmother who, you know, who was at the panel. I think I mentioned Mary and I mixed it up with the St. Mary's. But you got it, you got it. Yeah, I remember I remember that particular day when when elder Alma Brooks, you know, very clearly and looking straightforward to, to all the newcomers in the room. You know, she said, I welcome you here on behalf of our community, you know, give you our welcome you're welcome to be with us here we want to get to know you, we want to know more about you we want to learn from you. And the only thing I asked you she said the only thing I asked you is that you will take care of the land, you will take care of the water, and you will respect our people. And that was that was very powerful. And then you know that was, it was great to see that sort of direct dialogue and communication. You know, when Crystal told you earlier today, right, that one of the things that we've heard in one of the many meetings and, you know, is that people of, you know, who live in urban centers, you know, as where are the where are the people, where are the natives, you know, we talk about them and we don't see them and where. Because there is that genuine interest from people, you know, want to know, you know, something that has been denied to us, I mean, it's not only that we don't learn about others but in many cases we don't learn about ourselves. Right. And so that's what it's been denied to us and I think that that's another commonality that we share that we want to explore that we want to remove those colonial barriers right through those colonial barriers and learn about our identity. Our ancestral roots, our traditions, our cultures, our languages. And I don't buy into that, you know, that it's all in the past and it's dead and it's not going to come back. I said, Well, actually, every time I, I agree with you in, in, in Iowa that I thinking, Yeah, this is life. So that's what I was telling you earlier today. To know that means today, everyone. So I'm going to leave it there. I don't know. I can't believe that you don't have any questions. Well, maybe we'll just give them some awesomeness and something will come up from that. I would love to share with you all a little bit about what's happening at Kairos, particularly in relation to Earth Day. The ecological justice program that Connie used to work in is now with Beth Lorimer and she today is doing a launch of the for love of creation campaign that is really meant to raise up Earth Day and Kairos work simultaneously. So that's one thing that if you are so inclined, you can check out that's fresh on the Kairos website. Also, we have the murdered and missing indigenous women and girls info hub on the Kairos website. And that has recently gone under undergone sorry a bit of a refreshment. So there's some newer links, some newer resources. I feel for myself as an indigenous woman, it is very relevant on Earth Day to touch on the calls to justice and how learning about connections to the land and indigenous women's bodies will actually help strengthen our understanding of some of the needs around reconciliation and the remedial potential of the future. And then also very, very exciting is the mayor hub, the Mother Earth Resource Extraction Information Hub, which is being spearheaded by Gabriella Jimenez, who is also a Kairos superstar. So the mayor hub is by indigenous land offenders. And it's meant to be a supportive resource for indigenous land offenders but also a great spot to get information and insights from the land offenders themselves. Last year the hub launched the mayor hub launched. And it was a special spotlight on South American issues and Latin American issues and which is great because it was, it's been a great learning tool for myself because I don't know as much about what's going on outside of Canada is what I've learned. But this year for 2020 the focus is on gathering those Canadian stories. So please have a check and visit with those different resources and and kind of offerings of the Kairos website. On the Kairos website, you can also find contact information for myself, for Alfredo, for Connie, for the other awesome staff who are on this call such as Connor, Rick and Isabelle and Cheryl and Fajera and Giselle, I see you all. But for the program staff who are on this call, please absolutely do not hesitate to reach out to us. Our pictures are there. We're happy to engage with you and answer any questions or connect in any way. And we'd like to have more of these chats. We have scheduled one for May 20, another Wednesday, and the final one for June 17. And I say final as in, this is a three part test pilot. So, if you love us, we'll be back. So we will be sending out a bit of a follow up email using the email addresses you used to sign up to just kind of gauge your feedback and what you thought of this little chat space. I was designed to be a very introductory kind of chat because we want you to know who we are to hold this space to have these conversations. And so we hope to get your input and anything that maybe comes to you later, but, you know, was sparked by this, by this little mini gathering. I want to honor the elders in this space. I want to honor the youth I see that is in this space. And once again, please, we have a few more minutes. I want to try and be concise because there is a follow up right after it for a clock. I believe it's mining watch is holding another chat space similar to this. So it's a busy day. There is lots of traffic with all of the eco justice warriors out there it's and it's a what a great problem to have right too many, too many communities to pick from in support of our earth. I'll just open it up quick and if there's any, any, any calls to share, please, please feel free to do so now. I have a question. I often encounter this question and, and honestly, not that I don't know how to respond, but I just want to, you know, to share this and don't have to respond to this now but you know for the next webinar or something to think especially people from, you know, from people of color, new commerce, or especially from, you know, from my community. They're scared. They're wary. They're, you know, they don't know how to approach, you know, the question of building relationship and being friendly with, you know, indigenous people here. Like they, they, I guess, you know, they don't want to be seen as doing this as a token. They want to build a real, you know, relationship, but they just don't know how. And sometimes I feel that too. Like I don't want to add harm to what is already there, but at the same time, not knowing, you know, all the histories and so forth. I'm, I'm, I'm sometimes not scared but prevented from, you know, from taking the first step of doing it and I can understand if, you know, people from my community, for example, would feel the same. So, so they always ask, ask that question, how do we do it? What, what can we do to, to, you know, to, to show that it's not tokenism, but it's rather wanting to build a sincere respectful and long term, you know, friendship and relationship. That's a good question. Maybe we can, we can write it down and maybe we'll do something in the next on May the 20th when we come back. And maybe we can ask some people to speak on that and to offer some comments or insights into that. We just had a quick web question on the chat about asking whether the next two chat sessions would be on Indigenous and newcomer friendship and all three chats will have the same overarching kind of subject. And also the question of what the other topics of the future chats might be. Perhaps there does need to be a more more of a Q&A, you know, something like you're saying about what are some ways to build those those connections that are without causing harm. Maybe that's something for the next chat is how do we build connection and really discuss tangible ways of doing that. What does that look like, especially at a time where we're so grounded online from our houses. I think when I think about the newcomer Indigenous friendship gatherings of the past and how they were in person, I can really easily see how that would be so powerful to come together and share a meal and to connect like we would with our neighbors and our family. So we can't do that right now. But maybe maybe there's some brainstorming for myself and Connie and Alfredo that we can come with some really great tips and tricks for our next get together. So thank you so much for those questions. And I'm just going to have to be a bit mindful of the time because of the additional planned chats that are going on. And once more thanking you all so much for taking the time out of your day to join us for picking us from three to four. It was very nice to to see your faces and to hold this online space. Miigwech, Tanzi, Merci for joining us today and I will just pass it really quickly to Alfredo and Connie to say their thank yous and thank you. Adios. Beautiful. Thank you Alfredo. Thank you everyone. I cannot do that I cannot sing. So it's really, you know, a pleasure to have you join us, you know, at this chat and hopefully we'll see you next time. And with, you know, bringing with you lots of questions and sharing. And yeah, thank you. Thank you everyone. Thank you. Thanks everybody. Yeah.