Jennifer, the driving force behind LSH, hit upon the idea of skills-sharing workshops as a way to foster connections in her adopted Atlantic Canada community. With high rates of provincial out-migration and increasing numbers of immigrants without ties to their new communities, Maritime residents are particularly vulnerable to social isolation — something Jennifer felt acutely when she moved to a new neighborhood in 2017. The following year, she opened her home to host more than 50 workshops as a means to foster connections between neighbourhoods and build bridges across difference.

What sets LSH workshops apart are their hosts: to date, more than a dozen Nova Scotian community members have been trained in the skills that support their grassroots leadership. These become skills that they in turn cultivate among their neighbours. Hosts offer their homes, studios, barns and yards as free workshop spaces. In these hubs, community members gather to learn from workshop facilitators, who are peers with skills and wisdom to share. Crucially, no money changes hands: participants compensate facilitators exclusively through gifts and barter items. The model, says Jennifer, breaks down the financial barriers that may prevent participation. “It enables an environment where everyone has something valuable to contribute, where everyone knows that they are enough and have enough to be part of a community.”

By opening their doors to strangers, hosts demonstrate a genuine trust, which permeates the community. And it shows: LSH communities are reporting a stronger sense of connection and resilience. Nearly 90% of participants report greater happiness and creativity, and an increased sense of community; three-quarters say they’ve met new people and made real friends.

In Canada and internationally, Jennifer is partnering with like-minded networks to grow LSH, which has expanded across Nova Scotia and is making its way across the country. The LifeSchoolHouse is also working with new partners in the United States, Denmark, and Mexico. With Ashoka, she looks forward to sharing the Life.School.House model globally — knitting together resilient, cohesive communities, one workshop at a time.

Life.School.House

For guidance in addressing today’s environmental challenges, explains Jessica, RELAW turns to the laws of Indigenous peoples who have governed their territories since time immemorial: laws that are found in Indigenous stories, songs, art, language, ceremonies and nature itself. “[T]he beautiful stories [of Indigenous peoples] …teach us how to be in relationship with the land and with each other. From the stories, we’re able to draw out principles of law, to have that dialogue with communities.”

Working side-by-side with Indigenous peoples to strategically apply Indigenous and Canadian law, Jessica and her team seek to create legal solutions to complex environmental problems and build greater sustainability for all. WCEL has been at the forefront of establishing dozens of important environmental laws and regulations in BC and Canada — including the new British Columbia Environmental Assessment Act, the first provincial legislation in Canada that recognizes the inherent jurisdiction of Indigenous nations in making their own decisions regarding resource projects within their territories.

In 2020, Jessica was named by Canadian Lawyer magazine as one of the top 25 most influential lawyers in Canada. An Ashoka Fellowship, she says, strengthens and allows her to scale up her commitment to “using the law to change the rules of the game in ways that are more democratic, more sustainable, and more just.”

West Coast Environmental Law

In a region where jobs are scarce, SIKU is also creating space for a new, local conservation economy. Imagine, for example, a southern university hiring 50 Inuit hunters to gather and track data on ice conditions or caribou migration patterns through their mobile phones. Younger Inuit, says Joel, are uniquely positioned to work within the contexts of both cutting-edge technologies and their Elders’ language, stories and knowledge systems. To train this next generation of community researchers and environmental stewards, insights and capabilities of the platform are further linked to curriculum learning outcomes for Northern school boards.

Since its launch in 2019, SIKU has engaged thousands of people across the Canadian Arctic, where it’s used in more than half of the 51 Inuit communities in the region and in dozens of research collaborations between Indigenous communities, regional organizations, universities and governments. The AES aims to develop functionality for travel safety, climate-change monitoring and gender equity in environmental stewardship and Inuit self-determination. Globally, SIKU is expanding to other Indigenous circumpolar communities; several Indigenous populations around the globe have expressed interest in the application for their own self-determination efforts.

Joel started working in the Inuit community of Sanikiluaq in the early 2000s to conduct PhD research on eider ducks. “When I finished my PhD, local Sanikiluaq Inuit congratulated me, and told me that when it came to Inuit knowledge, I was still in kindergarten.” Joel was smart enough to agree: by 2011, he had transitioned out of academics to co-found AES. He’s been learning ever since, with the goal of strengthening his adopted community and re-centring Indigenous knowledge in the stewardship of the Hudson Bay ecosystem.

Arctic Eider Society

Shelly grew up in the Canadian Arctic, only vaguely aware of her whiteness and the privilege it afforded her. Only as an adult, in southern Canada, did she realize that she had been the only white student in a residential school, and that, unlike her, her Inuit classmates were regularly streamed out of academic programs. Mindful of the ways she had profited as a settler from these racist systems, she returned to the region to begin a conversation with the Inuit about how to best serve in the community.

In 2013, Shelly began teaching environmental technology at Nunavut Arctic College. But instead of training Inuit students in supporting roles as boat drivers or sample collectors for southern scientists, she insisted on developing their skills as scientists in their own right.

Outside the college, Shelly and her students co-created a new program: Ikaarvik (which means “bridge” in Inuktitut), reorients scientific research and agendas in the area from a southern and settler focus to a northern perspective that focuses on the region’s priorities, strengths and young people. Ikaarvik youth researchers coined the term “ScIQ,” to describe the incorporation of Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit into Western science. The result? Better, more relevant, science that empowers Inuit youth and the communities they live in.

By 2019, Ikaarvik had trained more than 750 early-career scientists in the basics of community-based research, meaningful engagement within Indigenous communities, and the utilization of Indigenous knowledge. The Kluane and Champagne-Aishihik First Nations communities in the Yukon are adapting the model for their own use. Internationally, Ikaarvik youth are working with the Arctic Council’s Protection of the Arctic Marine Environment and the International Institute for Sustainable Development’s Circumpolar Young Leaders program.

Ikaarvik is expanding rapidly, attracting increasing numbers of students, funders, and partners, and extending programming to address mental health, young women’s empowerment, and cultural empowerment.

As for herself, Shelly’s long-term goal is to become obsolete, leaving Ikaarvik entirely in the capable hands of Indigenous youth.

Ikaarvik

Candice set out to change the education system. In 2012, she launched Fostering Open eXpression among Youth (FOXY) to provide relatable and relevant sexual education to women and gender diverse peoples.

FOXY focuses on sexual empowerment and open expression, helping young people understand their worth and build their confidence. The model integrates local Indigenous knowledge and arts-based methods — such as theatre, beading, and digital storytelling — to allow youth to express their ideas and opinions about sexual health, love and life in general. With the support of Elders, young women pass on knowledge they’ve gained as Peer Leaders, which cultivates a new generation of leaders. FOXY is about giving young people power and confidence to decide for themselves what is best for them and their bodies. It is a holistic approach providing integrated sexual and mental health with accessible and inclusive programming.

FOXY has a plan for long-term, sustainable funding and has scaled the model in all three Canadian territories: the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut — reaching 20 percent of youth between 13 and 17 to date. The work to empower young women and sexual diverse people has been so effective that in 2016, Candice and a team of Northerners created a program for young men and masculine-identifying youth: Strength, Masculinities, and Sexual Health (SMASH).

Candice is changing the education system in the North. She is regularly part of policy discussions at the territorial level and she brokered a formal partnership with the Department of Education in the Northwest Territories to secure official accreditation of FOXY and SMASH so that youth can receive high school credits for completing leadership training. Candice wants to see FOXY adopted as the gold standard for sexual education among all genders, cultures, and locations.

FOXY