First Nations leaders gathering in Ottawa this week to elect a new national chief say the top issue facing the Assembly of First Nations is the need to unify the fractured organization following years of turmoil, either by reform or returning to the foundation on which it was built.
Alicia Wallace
LAST week, I moderated the second session in the Commonwealth Foundation’s Critical Conversation series. The event, entitled “Young Leaders Speak,” was a collaboration with the Queen’s Commonwealth Trust and Commonwealth Youth Council and brought young people together to talk about their leadership experience, activism and demands of Commonwealth institutions.
The main speakers were artist Darrion Narine from Trinidad & Tobago, green business expert Kakembo Galabuzi Brian from Uganda, design thinker Kavindya Thennakoon from Sri Lanka and policy expert Emmanuelle Andrews from the UK. They were joined by Nondumiso Hlophe from Eswatini and Lance Copegog from Canada.
The conversation started with the past. Thennakoon talked about her decision to write an open letter to Commonwealth institutions, calling their attention to the deliberate failure to acknowledge “histories of colonial conquest and the pain, suffering and subjugation” on their websites.