UNDRIP Action Plan sees response from Feathers of Hope gathering

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY – A group of Indigenous youth recently provided responses to the federal government’s UNDRIP Action Plan during the Feathers of Hope UNDRIP Action Plan Youth Gathering on Jan. 24 at the Valhalla Hotel and Conference Centre in Thunder Bay. The federal government’s United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) Act Action Plan 2023-2028 provides a roadmap of actions that Canada needs to take in partnership with Indigenous peoples to implement the principles and rights set out in UNDRIP and to further advance reconciliation in a tangible way.

“We’re asking young people to focus on certain categories of the [UNDRIP Action Plan] articles and to provide us with feedback based on their lived experience and how they think it affects them or doesn’t affect them and what recommendations they would have to make it better,” says Betty Kennedy, CEO at Feathers of Hope and a Red Rock Indian Band citizen. “We’ll be providing this back to Justice Canada, who funded this gathering, and in addition utilizing it for our own purposes in terms of advocacy as it relates to young peoples and their voices. It’s imperative that happens because a lot of times their voice isn’t even considered in any discussions that go on about any particular issue affecting Indigenous peoples, never mind children.”

Fort William youth Spenser Boucher says the gathering was “definitely an eyeopener,” noting that one of the recommendations was about equality.

“We’re definitely treated so differently, like how we’re not even people sometimes,” Boucher says. “There’s a lot of different perspectives and we all have different opinions, and some of us agree with things and some of us don’t. More people need to be involved in this and know about the UNDRIP Action Plan.”

Some of the other recommendations from the youth included: to make changes in the national curriculum to speak more about Indigenous contributions and the dark history of colonialism and residential schools; Indigenous people should have full rights to their own curriculum that implements cultural teachings and interests; a space for Indigenous government within Parliament; and more programming to help strengthen Indigenous culture and to work through intergenerational trauma.

“I thought that today our final recommendations from our youth groups were very insightful,” says Koral Hamilton, project manager at Feathers of Hope. “It showed that they really engaged and reflected on the material and they had a lot to say about what the government should be improving on.”

Hamilton says the recommendations from the youth will be sent to the Department of Justice Canada.

“It’s important because this is the first time that youth has had an input on the UNDRIP Action Plan in history,” Hamilton says.

Jason Thompson, owner of Superior Strategies and Warrior Engineering and a Red Rock Indian Band citizen, says the gathering was an opportunity for youth to have a voice.

“We need advocates, we need people who are forward thinking and it’s probably more important now than it ever has been in the world,” Thompson says, noting that people can see what is happening with climate change in the United States as well as with the shortened winter road season in northern Ontario. “We have to be engaged, we have a chance through the United Nations UNDRIP program to have a voice — we need to use that voice, it’s vitally important. I’m telling you right now, we’re at a very difficult point in this world. Change needs to happen, people need to find the courage to make change and use your voice.”