 My name is Ashley Carvel and I'm from Karkos, Tagish, First Nation. I grew up in Karkos, Yukon and lived there until I was about 18 where then I moved to Whitehorse Yukon. The peacemaking program has been something that's been talked about for decades. We have meeting notes going back to the 70s while they're discussing, organizing some training and how we can build capacity within the community to be able to nurture and foster our own people, to be able to conduct circles. So the peacemaking task group was established and we got the first round going and we did that through funding from Yukon Government Mental Wellness Strategy and the Native Indian Brotherhood and of course Karkos, Tagish, First Nation. And then by the time we were going to do the second round in 2018 we had won the Art of Inspiration Prize which is keeping the program going for a few years now. I would say the goal or the target audience for this is anyone and everyone. We've had youth in there from 17 years old to elders that are 80s and it's just rekindling those relationships and fostering that feeling of you know helping our elders again and doing it for stories and bringing back that sense of community that you know a lot of us feel is lost to the times we're in now. So we've we're want to focus on of course our citizens and members of Karkos, Tagish, First Nation but we've also had other First Nations involved from our Dalca Nation and that's been amazing. We've had participants express interest from all over the Yukon and members of Yukon Government which is great for building relationships with other agencies as well. So it's really really great to have so many people from diverse backgrounds and diverse skills and it's just when you're in circle everyone's equal so you have that opportunity to be just human and people with one another and not hold your degrees or hold your positions like out on the forefront that everyone's there equally. As First Nations we run a lot in the medicine wheel right like our virtues and our values and we reflect a lot on the quadrants of the medicine wheel so we have now starting our fourth round which will tie up the medicine wheel as the fourth quadrant and there's a lot of I don't want to say pressure but a lot of expectations that this group is going to be tying up the four like the circle so it's closing it in a way but we that's no way saying we're closing the program we have this money from the Art of Expiration Prize that we're going to carry forward to the next year and we want to build on another level so we have the fundamentals down of peacemaking and how we conduct ourselves in a circle safely and respectfully and how we attract as one another as human beings equally and on the next level we want to focus on how do you begin to do this in the public if you're contracted to do circles or if you want to do this as a full-time gig and you're just how how do we go about doing this so a next round we're designing um so you can essentially do that so we were planning on having more fundamental rounds because as as of now we've had over 80 graduates so we're hoping to get to 100 before we start the next round fostering reigniting I guess and the power of the circle and the are going back to our traditional virtues and values as indigenous people like how we run our lives on a daily and so just being able to walk the path of our ancestors again and be with each other in a respectful way and have more people with the capacity to be able to do tough tough circles and when trauma shows up in a room or trigger shows up and you know how to work with that and assist people through that facilitating circles and organizing and conducting circles um so just having those people as a resource in our own community and throughout the Yukon is going to be great not only for the Yukon but for Canada so currently we've run out of the learning center in car cross it was built in 2017 um amazing facility there is a sacred fire that's like every morning and the program is run around ceremony so they would start with smudging a prayer a check-in and then to go to the sacred fire and so there are times when you're on the line and connected and you're just around that fire being together but for the next round we're hoping that we can get more out doing activities on the land and back to that grounding and just being able to take that time to be one again right and you know it's important that we move forward in a respectful way like that I would say the program measures its successes by seeing circles happening in the daycare and happening in human resources within the First Nation and at the school the kids are opting for circle rather than going to have a discussion with the teachers or the principal or whatever and they're doing it themselves um having people being able to resolve their own conflicts before taking it to another level um and then there's also the other agencies like the RCMP and again the school like they've realized that circle is a way that you can resolve a lot of difficult um difficult thing so when we held the first round it was of course we're building this program from the ground up as the task group with a lot of guidance and support from the community in the First Nation we let the participants know right out we need your help building this program we want to make it the best that it can be and we ask them every step of the way there's four courses so we start with traditional virtues and values then you move into um dignity and uh response based approaches to language and then trauma and then it follows up with circle foundations every time one of those rounds was complete we would meet with them uh the participants we would do the evaluations and get their feedback on what was difficult what worked well and then moving into the second round I actually it was able to take that as a student so being able to get all of the feedback and then also provide my own um was really helpful for this as a task group and I guess what I got out of that was I've grown up with some of these people in my entire lives like being from car cross and I you actually get to know people and know their stories and know their lives and it's its own little community like everyone that has taken this so far you grow together as a group and you can't get that like you can't get that anywhere else being in circle there's just a lot that happens there's a shift um personally and as a group together so we also ask the graduates to speak at the end of the graduation ceremony to share about what their take was from the program and what they're going to do to I guess continue these practices within their personal lives and the community and a lot of the feedback we keep getting is they want more like this is just starting they can see the potential this has and they're going to continue in their personal lives but they also want to continue with the training we've had interest from other First Nations and we've also had interest from Brazil and Japan wanting to come up here but also us wanting to travel there so we would of course like to take this training Yukon wide first and um so we've had a lot of interest from Dawson but it's hard to commit 18 days of training that's spread through three months so it's I know it's a big ask but it's definitely worth it so like I was mentioning we have the four courses set so the each course has different instructors and we balance that with the male and the female because traditionally you know like we need to have that equity that balance like you need two sides it's like wings to fly so we have instructors from the Yukon from the community as well but we've also brought in instructors from that are involved in J.I.B.C. justice training and ex-chief judges you know we have peacemakers that are teaching the course as well and just local I do say and community members that have their huge resources within the community and continue to give I think it's our Aboriginal peoples that are rising back from all of the historical traumas and issues that we've had and coming together to do what we do best and work with our virtues and values and reigniting our culture and traditional um traditional virtues and values so being able to continue to foster and to grow and just pushing ourselves outside of the box and just continuing to thrive and I think it's us seeking more like you just want more out of life and to move and shift and grow like and so you're just building capacity not only within but like you're encouraging others to get on board like there's more right so just um being the best that we can be I believe the vision moving forward is to begin the curriculum development for the next round so we've done the foundations moving forward we would like to step up to the next level where we can start the advanced circle keepers and then we want to do a specialized circle keepers as well so eventually there'll be three and in the future we would like this to be self-sustaining where we can have the foundations running the same time as the third round right and we always have peacemakers growing and coming from all over to just keep building and keep you know creating that capacity um for peacemakers and throughout the world hopefully we had one round the first round in 2017 and then we did two in 2018 and again like I feel just we've seen so like internally so many great initiatives and projects that kind of just lose momentum and just trying to push through that to as a task group even to re really reevaluate what we're doing and what the intent is of our but what are our goals in this program and how can we keep it going and it's we have an issue with like capacity within the First Nation right like we have a lot of amazing programs but the capacity like the staffing and things like that so we need to we need resources we need more people that want to get involved and help and just help this program grow and again like we have been doing a lot of this is in kind from the First Nation but if we we've talked about partnering with Dog Call which is like Kesslin or Atlan and even having other you know agencies involved in making sure this doesn't I guess lose momentum as I've mentioned a lot has happened in the past and I think winning the AIP is going to keep this going for a while here we have another bit of you know like I guess another resource we can reach out to these people these other alumni are laureates that have won and like how is their program doing since they've been going and we've had a chance to do that just since the AIP was hosted in the north for the first time we've met the laureates from the past and the current ones and just being able to converse with them on how how do they keep going like what are you guys doing that's you know three years out seven years out how do you keep this going and running and don't so you're not losing your momentum and being able to network like that is really helpful I think the need for more meetings like that that was the first one that we've been to anyway of this kind and just being able to have so many people together in the same room even if it was just a two-hour like a media greet I guess but we we want more like when you feel that like you feel the energy and feel the buzz in the room and getting all these people together you just want more when you graduate of course you get your certificate the completion of the course I guess it's that again sense of like community and you know you're going to be back for more we all have sweaters as well they make like hoodies so it's pretty cool that all of the past graduates there's like now 80 people walking around with these hoodies that like you can wear with pride it's pretty great showing our logo and everything and yeah and we're hoping to build into the next round I can't think of the word just left accreditation so working with other colleges universities so this can be something that it's like internally the first nation recognizes the peacemaking circle training when they're doing hiring and screening for jobs which is awesome but to be able to have it recognized in another college or institution would be great we have it very diverse like the groups are set up so we have about 20 participants per round and we split them into teams which I didn't mention yet but and in the teams there's a diverse range of people right like the elders youth clans experiences and it's designed so you maybe like have to step outside of your box a little bit like we try to pair up like really outgoing outside of the box people with like introverts and try to like how do you get these relationships built on a smaller scale with these smaller groups as well as with the large group so just yeah building relationships within agencies to come in and having other first nations come in and like you know people that you find out like are your cousins like halfway through the course and stuff is pretty great and understanding there's a lot of stuff that comes up and we wanted the task group to ensure that there was safety and that this wasn't a healing course we designed it as a training course but the first round participants right off the bat let us know you can't sit in circle without healing it shows up like you you need to move forward and you move forward together and you have the capability to do that with this safe environment like within the circle within like this room of people just helping and guiding each other through traumas and past experiences as a community and you have past like offenders and victims or like multi-generational stuff that is there that's been there since your kindergarten and now you're in a circle with these people that you might not even talk to on a day-to-day basis but now you're in a room with them for 18 days and you leave with a completely different outlook you know hoping more people want to get on board right like it's maybe peacemaking could be the next buzzword we start the foundation course with traditional virtues and values so that carries through to the rest of the program and myself taking it I felt that disconnect with my culture and with my elders and growing up in a different time I guess and being able to learn that like as an auntie I have responsibilities culturally and historically that I had no idea existed and just knowing that now and how do I move forward it you definitely feel a shift and like your energy is different you just want I want to learn more I want to go on a hunt I want to learn how to do these things respectfully and to harvest and to do things that I typically you know wouldn't be doing like I'm hungry for that I'm hungry for my culture and it's very different from the western way of teaching when you know trauma happens and you move through it in your brain right and you just process that as best you can but then when you're dealing with it in I guess an indigenous way like a traditional way you're dealing with your trauma through your whole body and you're speaking that and feeling that and being able to have it come out in a safe way in a circle and just supported rather than like maybe typically like one-on-one with someone or even alone like just feeling being able to feel again and be open it's pretty amazing and we teach with stories like the first two days you're just learning about your stories and they split the men and the women and you learn women's responsibilities traditionally within a community and then the men do the same what is your responsibility as a man as a young man as a boy right but we've included community members that have training they've you know won some therapists things like that and we have peacemakers like Mark Wedge for example who's a peacemaker in the community and X he's one of our Cushaud Hennings one of the chiefs in the Yukon at Carcass just having those people being there as to show us like we we all can get there essentially like you know from wherever we come from or whoever we are we can we have the potential to like with education and with fostering and growing together as people we we can all get there it's like really empowering there is like of course going back to like the more I guess um accredited part of it we do do um book work there it's not like a lot it is sitting in circle but we do split into the groups and there is projects that are done and um there's scenarios maybe like I know my group we worked on scenarios um kind of like a multi-generational thing and how do you work with that in a circle and run through that and um so you do get to work in your group doing your project and then on your graduation day you present your um project and whether it's a scenario and you act it out or it's like we had art pieces made they're really like amazing beautiful art pieces or stories like they did skits um things like that and that those are presented to the task group and to the past graduates so then when the actual graduation happens the community is welcome like we open it to the Yukon like basically the graduation is open so anyone can come I would just like to thank everyone that's helped make this program what it is and then putting the I guess pen to paper and so to speak that from within and outside of the community it's been a big task but we've been pulling it off and it's I just like to express gratitude for that