The importance of building relationships and cultivating solidarity between newcomer and Indigenous youth

To create vibrant, healthy, and engaged communities, it is imperative that we work to build relationships among Indigenous peoples and migrants. Newcomers are not generally provided with opportunities to engage with Indigenous peoples and usually do not have access to resources or education to better understand the experiences of Indigenous communities. Through learning about ongoing colonialism, recognizing individual and collective complicity in settler colonialism, and engaging in transformative activities, opportunities for solidarity arise and cultivating cross-cultural relationships disrupts the ways that Canada has positioned newcomers in relation to Indigenous peoples. This project is focused on co-creating a comprehensive evaluation strategy with Newcomer Women Services Toronto that will further build the Newcomer and Indigenous Youth Solidarity program. Through decolonial practices newcomers engage in strategies to challenge systems of oppression including the repatriation of land.