Postings on our website related to Right Relations with our Aboriginal neighbours appear below.
To the right is a Twitter feed from @KUCtalks. You are invited to follow and join in the discussions.
For background, visit the Aboriginal Relations page.
January 26th KUC hosted our second `KAIROS Blanket Exercise`. Planners and participants were grateful for the leadership of the Elder and 4 other indigenous leaders.
We were led through an amazing morning of learning and connection.
“Walking Turtle Island and watching the land shrink and divide as the blankets folded in on themselves was a powerful way to experience our history.”
Photo credit: Thanks to the KAIROS Blanket Exercise Facilitators.
Join us this Saturday, January 26th morning for this unique, participatory history lesson – developed in collaboration with Indigenous Elders, knowledge keepers and educators – that fosters truth, understanding, respect and reconciliation among Indigenous and non-indigenous peoples. We begin at 9 am. KUC is thankful for the leadership of of Elders and knowledge keepers.
Still room for a few more participants! Contact the office if you would like to participate. 250-372-3020 or email kucurch@shaw.ca
It is well known that each time one participates in a Blanket Exercise is different and profound. If you have already taken this exercise, consider coming again.
Every year the Global and Community Action Committee chooses three recipients for Advent Giving Tree donations. This year the theme is children and education, and the recipients are:
1. KUC Preschool as our Local Recipient.
2. Cultural Revitalization, National Recipient (UCC Gifts with Vision catalogue, pg. 17). This program runs out of Morley United Church in Southern Alberta which brings Indigenous youth in care together for cultural programs to teach them about their First Nation culture and help them overcome the adversity of being in care outside their First Nation community.
3. Safe House Safer Society, International Recipient (UCC Gifts with Vision catalogue, pg. 9) – A program partnered with the Church of North India which operates safe houses for children who are victims of human trafficking. The safe houses give them another chance at life.
The Filipino Canadian Association of Kamloops and District (who meet at KUC) wanted us to know that KUC is welcome to attend the Filipino Cultural Christmas Party. Derm is getting a KUC group together to attend this dinner that we have been welcomed to attend. Please let Derm or Marnie S know after church on Sunday, if you would like to go.
Filipino Cultural Christmas Party @ TRU Grand ballroom, Sat. Dec. 15th at 5:30 pm
On Saturday November 10, Kamloops United Church gathered with many members of the community to participate in a public forum exploring the role of Privilege in our society and in our lives. Inspired by the negative public response to a poster campaign intended to start a conversation about privilege in a neighboring school district, the goal of this forum was to explore the role of Privilege in our own lives and to consider what our personal responsibility might be.
The Very Reverend Dr. Bill Phipps, a former Moderator of the United Church of Canada gave a stirring keynote address that touched on the areas of activism where he has centrally participated for decades. As a lawyer, ordained minister, and the Moderator of the UCC, he has been involved in the struggles for LGBT rights, feminism, racial equity, and Indigenous issues – notably including apologies on behalf of the church for the residential schools. The ultimate assumption of privilege that we humans have abused, according to Dr. Phipps, is in our treatment of mother earth and all her other creatures. (remarks continue after the photos)
Bill Sundhu, a Human Rights lawyer and former Judge acted as moderator for Saturday’s discussion. Mr. Sundhu first related his own story and perspective on privilege. He was a child of one of the first Sikh families to immigrate to Williams Lake from India; his parents were illiterate and his father was subsequently seriously disabled. It was this early experience, his educational opportunities, and his observations through the lens of a member of the judiciary that informed his remarks.
Each panel member was then given an opportunity to talk about their personal experience with privilege, or lack thereof. Jessica Vliegenthart is a woman, a lawyer, and uses a wheelchair, due to a spinal cord injury. Jessica acknowledged the dichotomy of her privilege as an educated professional, and also being a woman, a mother and disabled. Sam Numsen, the president of Kamloops Pride discussed his own privilege as a white “straight-passing” male, but shared how even in Kamloops that he and his partner and others of the LGBTQ2+ community have been subject to slurs and the possibility of violence.
Michele Walker, who works for the Kamloops Y managing programs for women and children who have experienced violence, provided this insight: for someone on the negative side of the privilege equation, there can be fear that addressing privilege will make their situation worse. Michele’s wisdom included the reminder that sometimes the best thing an ally can do is to stop talking and listen. The voices of those lacking privilege are the ones that need to be heard.
Aaron Sumexheltza is the elected Chief of the Lower Nicola Indian Band, and practiced law in Kamloops before being elected. Aaron shared a parable told to him by his grandmother about muskrat and beaver, and the failure of beaver to return the tail he stole from muskrat. At the conclusion of the forum, Aaron returned to that fable and reminded us all that muskrat and beaver, by necessity, still swim in the same pond, just as the settlers and Indigenous peoples must co-exist.
The afternoon concluded with an opportunity for attendees to direct questions to particular panelists. The moderator Bill Sundhu guided the group through respectful discussion and at 4 pm the forum ended on a very positive note with the responses to a question about “what now?”, “what positive steps can we take in our own community?” The forum on Privilege hosted by Kamloops United Church: Centre for Community and Spiritual Discovery was a success and was a hope-full impetus to carry on the conversation.
During the 2018 PRIDE week events KUC was delighted to be host to part of the Kamloops PRIDE “Express Yourself Exhibition and Art Crawl”. Students of Juniper Ridge Elementary school had created a beautiful mural of rainbow wings expressing diversity and inclusion. The description Juniper Ridge Elementary supplied states
“This mural represents our school’s commitment to support the diversity of all peoples, as well as their inclusion into our hearts. The wings demonstrate how our acceptance and love can lift each other up in a world where hate and ignorance pushes us down. The pride colours were chosen for the wings to show that our school is a safe space for the LGBTQ2S+ community. The wings are made up of individual feathers created by different students which reflects that this is something that needs to be fully supported by each of us as individuals.”
This wonderful mural was loaned to KUC to grace an entrance wall, welcoming people to the Art exhibit and to other activities at KUC that week. Some KUC folk posed for photos with the wings ..
