December 2024 Recipient - $3200 awarded

Walking Each Other Home Project (Phase 2 of 3 - Salt Spring Island) - $3200 

Queering the Village Workshop (March 2025)

Phase 2 Synopsis: The workshop is a weekend long event for the queer communities of the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island. The weekend begins with day 1 which is guided by Indigenous elder Kathi Camilleri, who will present her workshop: Building Bridges through Understanding the Village. 

On Day 2 we will continue to deepen our understanding of the meanings the Village has for us, as queer people. We will meditate on the vision of simultaneously decolonizing and queering the community that is inspired, and discern how we can each and all embody changes the vision requests of us. 

Participants then experience the dismantling of the Village system by colonization. Hierarchical social structures pit people against each other, fostering both lateral and vertical violence. Elders and youth are marginalized. The Queering the Village workshop guides participants to notice how they might live in ways that support diversity and co-creation. It helps people to see - and then build on - what is good and right in what they are already doing. It is designed to foster understanding of Indigenous trauma in Canada, and also to foster understanding that we are all Indigenous somewhere. The Village system is something our ancestors knew. Re-learning it, we remember who we are - and can be.  

We will continue to meet regularly on Salt Spring Island and sponsor other rural and remote queer communities to explore this queer village concept. We will integrate the lessons of this weekend event throughout the year(s). We imagine building on relationships established, and incorporating lessons learned to begin to establish an intergenerational, intersectional queer village on Salt Spring Island. This may serve as a pilot project for other rural communities in B.C.