Aboriginal - Girls Action Foundation

What we have learned about Indigenous women’s leadership
from YOUTH!
An Introduction by The Native Youth Sexual Health Network
For us at the Native Youth Sexual Health Network (NYSHN), this project started out
with a challenge: get the word out to as many young Indigenous women across Canada
as possible in less than 2 months to notify them about a creative essay contest. The
question posed to these women; “What does Aboriginal women’s leadership mean
to you? What does it look like?” This came from our partnership with the Aboriginal
Women’s Leadership Circle as part of Women’s Worlds 2011 – a global gathering of
women hosted in Ottawa in July 2011. The Circle wanted to ensure the meaningful and
vocal participation of Indigenous young women and give space and opportunity for this
to happen, and approached us at NYSHN to facilitate this in ways that were by and for
Indigenous youth.
We wanted to make sure that by the word “leadership” we didn’t just mean “people
in elected, political positions” or really anything that was only so-called “official” or in
organizations or institutions. We asked people to think about what it means to them
personally – in their lives, their communities, their nations, or wherever they are. We also
wanted to make sure that it wasn’t just the “written” word that was considered; we asked
people to tell us their stories in art, photography, video, song, and a whole lot more!
It is also important for us that by “women” we are speaking to ALL the women in our
communities – whether we are trans, Two Spirited, gender non-conforming – and that
we have the right to identify OURSELVES.
The response we received was overwhelming. Over 100 submissions and counting!
Clearly we couldn’t let all of this brilliance sit in our mail boxes, so we asked all the
women who submitted - do you want to be published? Again, it was an overwhelmingly
positive response that these voices NEED to be heard on all levels.
So before anything else is said, we really want to honour and acknowledge ALL of the
young people who submitted to the original creative essay contest. These essays were
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