Tewegan Housing For Aboriginal Youth

Published purpose

Through this 36-month project, Tewegan Housing for Aboriginal Youth will increase its ability to prevent and address gender-based violence (GBV) against Indigenous women, girls, or 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, with a focus on Indigenous Young Women ages 16 to 29 years living in urban Indigenous Ottawa. This will be achieved by: targeting the development of Indigenous resiliency in the workforce through implementation of administrative, financial, and digital communication integration infrastructure; development and implementation of Indigenous Youth Wellness Mentor Training curriculum for direct service, Operational Knowledge Keepers generative practices in coaching curriculum, as well as the development of infrastructure and community developed protocol to sustain the urban Indigenous Helpers network. The project will be working to align and develop the governance principles and organizational practices to reflect Indigenous Knowledge Recognition Principles, application of IGBA through Structurally Telling Our Story and applying Indigenous Harm Reduction approaches - which require that all methodologies, policies, practices be evaluated to identify measurable relational facilitators and reflect their capacity to individually and systemically interrupt loss, stem resource depletion, build relational assets, and sustain gain. This project will engage multiple relations across urban Indigenous Ottawa who have the capacity and knowledge to support the co-creation of culturally safer assets fundamental to building organization’s relational assets and culturally safer spaces from which to prevent and address GBV with Indigenous young women, Two-spirited folks and all their relations. The project primary partners will be Indigenous Young Women and Two-Spirit folks (IWY2S) (residents, alumni of Tewegan, and those experiencing chaos), Intergenerational mentors across urban Indigenous Ottawa, and the urban land base cared for by the host nation. The project will also work with the Ottawa Aboriginal Coalition and each member agency, municipal and cross-sector institutional partners who are members of the Indigenous Women’s Safety Table, Assembly of Seven Generations, Reaching Home community entities including the Ontario Federation of Indigenous Friendship Centres, and Inclusion Press. By the end of the project, Tewegan Housing for Aboriginal Youth will have strengthened their capacity to prevent and address GBV against Indigenous women, girls, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ people, ages 16 to 29 years, Alumni and their relations across urban Indigenous Ottawa.