Artwork created by: Grace Swain

 

2025 Indigenous
Youth and Community Futures Fund Project Descriptions

 

Organization Name: Oshkico

Location: Sault Ste. Marie

Project Summary: When Marsh the cat astronaut and Berry the alien cat crash land on a new extraordinary world, they need help to fix their ship so they can return home. On this planet they meet their new friend Nova. A mushroom cat who speaks Anshinabemowin! With Nova's help, they introduce them to the Anishinaabe way of life and language. Follow their journey as they help repair their ship, and how they develop an amazing friendship on Planet Nova!

 

 

Organization Name: NMKNS

Location: Sudbury

Project Summary: This project aims to re-connect Indigenous youth with their language, culture, and the land. It includes two five-day land-based camps per year aimed at inspiring them to learn new art forms, create connections, and find comfort in the natural environment. The camp also seeks to equip youth with survival skills, traditional teachings, and essential items by providing a safe space as well as necessary equipment for overcoming challenges on the land.

 

 

Organization Name: Aunties on the Road: Indigenous Full Spectrum Doula Collective

Location: Ottawa

Project Summary: Our project activities (workshops, trainings + doula services) aim to support Indigenous youth in Ottawa to grow in relationship with their bodies, through increased knowledge of their sexual and reproductive health, from both western and traditional cultural perspectives. Through our programming, we aim to instil community and cultural knowledge and teachings to such rites of passage, recognizing the plethora of benefits connection to community and culture offers to Indigenous people.

 

 

Organization Name: Youth Healing Lodge

Location:Wikwemikong

Project Summary: We will host a series of bi-monthly socials and workshops for 2 Spirit youth in Wikwemikoong, to build connections with the community and learn from 2S mentors, teachers and elders. This will take place from June 2025 to March 2026. Each session will consist of a workshop, and informal social time with a shared meal.

 

 

Organization Name: Endaayaan Awejaa

Location: North Bay

Project Summary: Through hands-on workshops and mentorship, the project aims to reconnect Indigenous youth (15-29) in North Bay, Nipissing First Nation, and nearby communities with their culture. Led by Indigenous youth, Elders, and Knowledge Keepers, it offers regalia-making, drum-building, medicine bundles, and land-based teachings. This initiative fosters cultural revitalization, leadership, and intergenerational learning, ensuring Indigenous knowledge thrives.

 

 

Organization Name: Tkaronto Plant Life

Location: Toronto

Project Summary: Tkaronto Plant Life is an Indigenous-led farm in Tkaronto focused on food sovereignty, land stewardship, and intergenerational knowledge-sharing. We provide urban Indigenous and BIPOC youth with farming education rooted in Indigenous perspectives. With this funding, we will expand workshops on seed knowledge, growing from seed to harvest, medicine-making, and urban farming. Our long-term goal is to establish an urban Indigenous farm school to further land-based education.

 

 

Organization Name: Barrie Native Friendship Centre

Location: Barrie

Project Summary : Eshkniigit Maawnjidwin (Where the Young People Meet) is a self-governed group that’s focus is to empower young people that have a desire to connect to culture through community. Over the next year our goal is to build a foundation for young adults to learn their traditional roles and responsibilities through teachings, sweat lodge ceremonies, fasting and land-based learning.

 

 

Organization Name: Kawiraksa Krew

Location: Akwesasne

Project Summary: The Kawiraksa Krew wants to continue operating while respecting the time and energy of our language teacher/mentor as we grow our understanding of Kanien’kéha. We want to continue weekly Kanien’kéha sessions, have land-based learning activities, create space for speakers who have mastered novice levels, and expand our Ohenton Karihwatehkwen learning tools to students of Oherokon. We aim to use new strategies to keep Kawiraksa Krew members continuing their learning beyond our weekly sessions.

 

 

Organization Name: Matachewan First Nation

Location: Matachewan

Project Summary: This project seeks to develop a Ceremonial Ground area with a wigwam construction teaching, and to hold traditional and cultural teachings in a more cultural environment. This project will provide mental health stability and a safe place for all who wish to join the youth. A spiritual journey to be shared for families to enhance a healthier family lifestyle.

 

 

Organization Name: The Waterways Collective

Location: Cutler

Project Summary: Paddling ancestral waterways, visiting pictograph sites, reseeding manoomin (wild rice), community-led monitoring of PFAS (polyfluoroalkyl substances) contamination in fish, and micro fish hatchery operations, The Waterways Collective seeks to create meaningful water-based opportunities for youth and their community members. They feel strongly about getting their community back out onto their ancestral waterways, being active in supporting their local ecosystems for current & future generations.

 

 

Organization Name: Georgian Bay Anishinaabek Youth

Location: Parry Sound

Project Summary: A series of Seasonal Workshops (Canoeing, Hide Tanning, Trapping, and Fishing) will be held for Indigenous Youth ages 13-29, with each workshop grounded in the Anishinaabek Seasonal Cycle and how we work with the land throughout the year. The workshops will be safe spaces for youth to develop a deeper respect for the land and animals, gain traditional skills, and build a stronger sense of culture within the Robinson-Huron Treaty Territory, on the eastern shore of Mnidoo Gamii (Georgian Bay)

 

 

Organization Name: The Wiijindamaan Land Restoration Project

Location: Kitchener

Project Summary: The project seeks to create a learning space for Indigenous youth to have access to traditional ecological knowledge. We provide workshops free-of-charge on traditional medicine identification, hunting and trapping, biodiversity monitoring and survey training, tree planting, animal tracking skill building, invasive species management and traditional cultivation practices. For the future, we are aiming to add even more workshops to our repertoire and provide a space that is accessible for all.

 

 

Organization Name: Youth Odena

Location: Sault Ste. Marie

Project Summary: Youth Odena will hold cross generational safe spaces for Indigenous Youth in Bawaating ages 12-35. We will host youth lead workshops focussed on skill building, wellbeing and Anishinaabe teachings. Workshops will be held monthly, working with youth, so that everyone gets a turn to lead. Youth Odena will be holding these workshops in a safe and public place making sure everyone who is invited is welcome.

 

 

Organization Name: Learning From Lake Sturgeon

Location: Moose Factory

Project Summary: This project provides an opportunity to bridge youth with their culture, land, and community, while at the same time allowing skills and knowledge of conservation and stewardship to grow. With this program and it's many activities, we can ensure that teachings from our Elders and Knowledge Keepers are passed down, to strengthen our bonds reconnecting and preserving our culture.

 

 

Organization Name: ENAGB - (Thunder Bay)

Location: Thunder Bay

Project Summary: This project will provide a space and opportunity for a 12-member Indigenous youth council in Thunder Bay to collaborate on decision-making and community-based leadership through monthly meetings over the course of a year. Furthermore, after a year of establishing a strategic direction for ENAGB TBay, the youth council has selected delivering an annual artist residency program as a top priority for meeting the city's program needs in land-based education, language learning, and reconciliation.

 

 

Organization Name: Wikwemikong Pontiac School

Location: Wikwemikong, ON P0P 2J0

Project Summary: Grounded in the traditional way of life, this project seeks to strengthen Wikwemikong Pontiac students' Anishinaabe identity and self-efficacy through 13 learning sessions on gardening, hunting, food preservation, medicine harvesting and preparing, with the guidance of Elders and school mentors.

 

 

Organization Name: Regional Multicultural Youth Council

Location: Thunder Bay

Project Summary: Revolution Akwezens Weekend Retreat will build on the successes of previous RMYC "revolution girl style" workshops in order to promote healthy relationships, self esteem, and health and safety to Indigenous girls and 2SLGBTQ+ youth who identify with the project's goals during a weekend stay at a hotel through the use of land-based activities, arts, and workshop sessions. The project will send youth home with the tools to start their own gender-based support groups and mentorship.

 

 

Organization Name: Haudenosaunee Universe

Location: Akwesasne

Project Summary: "Roots to Resilience: Empowering Youth through Culture and Land" is a youth-driven project designed to reconnect Haudenosaunee youth with their culture, land, and wellness. Taking place in Akwesasne, this initiative combines gardening, traditional arts, and mental health support to build strength, creativity, and community. Led by youth like Halle and guided by local elders and mentors, it’s all about learning from the land, healing through culture, and empowering the next generation.

 

 

Organization Name: Skátne Aetewatéweyenhsthe ne Ohwentsyà:ke (For us to learn together on the land)

Location: Deseronto

Project Summary: This project will support youth second language Mohawk learners to improve their speaking proficiency from Intermediate-High on the ACTFL scale to Advanced-Mid. This program will be delivered over 1800 hours over a two year period in an immersion environment. Participants will connect with Elder first-language speakers and other second-language learners through a structured curriculum designed for learners at the Intermediate-High proficiency level.

 

 

Organization Name: Centre for Indigenous Support and Community Engagement

Location: Ottawa

Project Summary: This project will host two weekend cultural retreats for Indigenous students at Carleton University, providing a chance to step away from campus life and reconnect with their roots. Guided by Elders and Knowledge Keepers, students will engage in land-based activities, ceremonies, and workshops like medicine-making and winter teachings. These retreats aim to foster cultural connection, community building, and healing, offering students a supportive space to grow.

 

Organization Name: Anishinaabeg Palestinian Alliance

Location: Kenora

Project Summary: The Anishinaabeg Palestinian Alliance is a group of Palestinian and Anishinaabeg organizers who are committed to enacting deep and relational practices of joint struggle to work towards our collective liberation. This organizing group hosts community events, art builds and most importantly, hosts a one-week delegation for Palestinian kin to visit Treaty 3 homelands to learn about settler colonialism on Turtle Island and to build committed relationships to one another.

 

 

Organization Name: Algonquin Youth Collective

Location: Maniwaki

Project Summary: This project aims to empower Indigenous youth to engage in meaningful dialogue and intergenerational mobilization strategies on Indigenous-led environmental protection related to nuclear colonialism. Many diverse communities continue to advocate for meaningful engagement, respect, implementation of free, prior and informed consent, and the utilization of Indigenous knowledge. Empowering our youth to find their role in this work means sustainable and intergenerational capacity building.

 

 

Organization Name: Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON) Anishinaabemowin Collective

Location: Neyaashiinigmiing

Project Summary: This project seeks to record elders speaking Anishinaabemowin within the communities of the Saugeen Ojibway Nation (SON), Saugeen and Neyaashiinigmiing. These recording sessions will be focused on working with elders to determine what stories and histories are important to record and transmit to youth. Youth learners will be given a chance to take part in these recording sessions and to practice their language by transcribing the recordings.

 

 

Organization Name: Whitefish River First Nation

Location: Whitefish

Project Summary: The Makoons program seeks to increase skills and knowledge around culture through an Indigenous based scouts’ program for youth aged 7-13 in Whitefish River First Nation. Through the programs weekly sessions during summer 2025, young scouts will engage in a variety of hands-on activities and learning sessions that are designed to foster a deeper understanding of their local traditions and values whilst earning badges and/or culturally relevant prizes for their personal achievements.

 

 

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