HOW YOU CAN HELP
Fighting a legal battle is expensive.
In April 2021, we launched a legal challenge to stop the illegal treaty negotiations currently taking place on Ma’amtagila territory. This is the first step to regaining jurisdiction over our land. You can read more about that here.
Donations can be made to the Ma’amtagila Legal Defence Fund by etransfer to maamtagilafund@gmail.com.
100% of all donations go to our legal team, led by Declan Redman of Cook Roberts Law.
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A Message from Makwala Rande Cook, artist & Hereditary Ma’amtagila Chief:
We always had a home, let us protect our land
First the Government came to stop our culture, then they made it illegal for us to practice our ways. Then they forced us on Reserve lands pushing us away from our natural resources. Then they assimilated us by forcing our children into Residential Schools. The Residential School survivors who left school at an older age had no home to go back to, so many found themselves lost in urban spaces. Racism then forged its way creating a separation where indigenous peoples were not allowed to partake or live within mainstream society. Then the mothers who were Residential School survivors birthed children, then were seen as unfit so the government stepped in “again” placing the children in foster homes. Today Canada speaks of Reconciliation, but the land is exempt from all conversations.
Most indigenous groups today are still fighting for their land, so they can reconnect and heal from the trauma of Canada’s dark history. Still today industry is raping every bit of old growth standing.
Are we still being assimilated I ask?
We just want to protect what has given us life from our earliest beginning, and invite the rest of Canada to live with our values and see the land as we do. That’s reconciliation. Let us share who we are as indigenous peoples, let us share our culture and way of life. Let us show you we care about you who are non indigenous and that we can work together in creating something beautiful. Let us feed you with our knowledge and purify you from the rivers of our ancestors. Let us unite so we may dance again one day on this beautiful land. Let’s protect old growth!
Help us protect what is left.
If we can heal the land we can heal ourselves.
Gilakasla,
