Listen Live

Six Nations said goodbye to a beloved language and cultural teacher this week.
Ima Johnson was a Mohawk language teacher for over 25 years and one of the founders of Mohawk immersion education at Six Nations.
She was named a community treasure in 2004 and a Six Nations Knowledge Guardian in 2008. Johnson passed away on April 20th. She was 79 years old.

A professional teacher training program has launched in the Niagara region, arming local elementary school teachers with confidence teaching students about Ontario’s indigenous people.
The training is the second phase of the Landscape of Nations Memorial Indigenous Education Initiative and was developed by indigenous academics in cooperation with the Woodland Cultural Centre Museum.
The Woodland Cultural Centre says the training is an opportunity for teachers in the province to engage in truth and reconciliation by providing accurate indigenous content in the classroom.

A class action settlement for Canada’s federal Indian Day Schools is open to some former elementary students at Six Nations and Missisaugas of the Credit.
Indigneous Crown Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett announced a settlement agreement for members of the federal Indian day school class action could receive compensation of 10,000 common experience and up to 200,000 for instances of abuse.
Students who attended any of Canada’s 700 federally operated Indian day schools can apply to register or opt out of the class by May 3.
All of Six Nations and Mississaugas of the Credit public schools are on the list. Students who attended them up to 1990 are eligible to be included as part of the class action.

Six Nations of the Grand River says it has accepted an accommodation deal with a
developer building two new housing projects in Caledonia.
Ballantry Homes has given 42.85 acres of farm land and $352,000 to the Six Nations Elected Council as
part of the accommodation deal to approve two housing projects: Beatties Estates and McKenzie
Meadows on the east and west sides of McKenzie Road in Caledonia.
The first part of the project in McKenzie Meadows is located directly across the street from the former
Douglas Creek Estates site where the land reclamation in 2006 took place. A total of nearly 1400 homes are proposed between
the two projects.

Brock University announced that Six Nations Mohawk Amos Key, Jr. will become the University’s first-ever Vice-Provost of Indigenous Engagement.
Key has been an indigneous academic working in the arts, language and cultural preservation for the last 25 years at the Woodland Cultural Centre. He is currently an assistant professor at the University of Toronto’s Centre for Indigenous Studies,
Key begins his position at Brock on July 1.

Six Nations of the Grand River Development Corporation says it is going to resume
work on the Niagara Reinforcement Project hydro line.
Construction was halted in January 2019 after the Dev Corp announced they received a cease and desist letter from the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council ordering work on the line to halt.
SNGRDC Director Matt Jamieson said in an emailed statement that there is no new arrangement between Hydro One and the HCCC, but says Hydro One wishes to continue on the original agreement and complete the NRL.
In a public notice, SNGRDC announced it was returning to work on the project, saying the decision to return to work was reached by the “SNGRDC Governance Group and it’s Shareholder.”

The 18th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues in New York City
opened this week. The forum was opened with a song by the Sjisäwishék ‘Keeping the fire strong’,
indigenous girls of the Onondaga Nation, Haudenoaunee Confederacy. The song was followed by
Tadodaho Sid Hill of the Onondaga Nation who gave a traditional Ganohonyok opening address. This
session runs through to May 2 and is focused on protecting traditional knowledge in indigenous cultures.