The ‘Home on Native Land’ learning series launched in January, offering ten entertaining 30-minute modules to help learners deepen their understanding of Indigenous rights in Canada.
The modules include cartons, lessons and videos featuring Indigenous leaders and legal experts.
For RAVEN Trust executive director Susan Smitten, the toolkit serves as a response to the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“This is fundamental knowledge for anyone who is committed to living in a fair country,” Smitten said in a February 16 news release.
RAVEN is known for raising legal defense funds to support Indigenous-led campaigns in B.C., while providing public education that’s essential to achieve a meaningful form of reconciliation.
“Indigenous laws — and the very best parts of Canada’s constitution — are upheld by treaties and validated again and again in the country’s courts,” Smitten said. “This braiding of traditions offers a path forward not only for cultural understanding but for our very survival in a time of climate crisis.”
The program helps learners move beyond the common themes in Indigenous education — residential schools, treaties and reconciliation — and explore Indigenous laws that have existed well before Canadian confederation.
The course is hosted by Indigenous comedian Ryan McMahon, whose four-part documentary series Thunder Bay recently premiered on Crave.
‘We come from the land in our stories’
Throughout the course, students learn about the fundamentals of Treaty rights, the legacy of the Indian Act, constitutional rights, and environmental rights and Indigenous stewardship.
In an interview with rabble.ca, RAVEN communications director Andrea Palframan reflected on the impact of the initiative.
“Humor is always disarming,” Palframan said. “And in a space as contentious as discussion of Indigenous rights… the temperature is already hot.”
The uncomfortable nature of unpacking the legacies of colonization and white supremacy, she added, can often lead to assumptions, defensiveness, and shame.
But what sets RAVEN’s course apart from others is that it endeavors to break out of the echo chamber.
Not only does the course rely on humor, it also harnesses the power of personal storytelling by using lived experiences to connect on a deeper level with audiences.
As Dr. Jeff Corntassel explains in the first exercise, links to the land are embedded in the genealogy of Indigenous communities.
“We come from the land in our stories,” Corntassel explained.
Explaining issues in ‘dinner table language’
While other toolkits may require higher education or an understanding of Indigenous rights, RAVEN wanted their initiative to be accessible to anyone from any background.
Palframan explained the course was designed primarily for those who may not have time to unpack the intricacies of the United Nations Declaration for the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) or analyze the harms of the constitution on Indigenous communities.
“But they do want to have some good talking points, and they need metaphoric ways of explaining things,” she said, referring to the course as “dinner table language.”
The course also tackles a number of misconceptions about Indigenous people and their communities, rights, and histories. Those misconceptions, according to Palframan, center around assumptions that Indigenous people are somehow privileged within the Canadian system.
“So actually revealing the beautiful Indigenous legal framework and laws that predate colonialism,” she said. “And that those laws are not archaic, or fragments of the past, that they’re actually living, breathing legal frameworks.”
‘Being educated — there’s no risk’
The response to the toolkit, Palframan says, has been overwhelmingly positive. While RAVEN anticipated the course would be used primarily by educators, Palframan was pleasantly surprised to hear that unions and even insurance companies are taking part in the program.
The participation of businesses helps respond to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s calls to actions that require employers to educate themselves on the laws of the land.
“We want it to be for people who maybe have never really considered things in that light and show them rather than tell them,” Palframan said.
She noted the Black Lives Matter movement has made it clear that it’s time for settlers and white people to do the work of dismantling privilege and supremacy culture.
In RAVEN’s world, she added, that’s achieved by becoming anti-colonialists.
“It’s taught me personally… where I can be effective and where I belong in this conversation,” she said. “Being educated — there’s no risk. There’s actually never any risk to learning more.”
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