Our Story.
Reclaiming Our Roots was founded in 2018 by Mi’kmaw couple, James Doucette and Chenise Hache, after the two partnered to host a workshop on eel preparation and cooking for youth in an urban school that Chenise supported as a Mi’kmaq/Aboriginal Student Support Worker. They look back on this workshop and acknowledge three great lessons:
There is great risk in doing this work. Young people, for a myriad of reasons, join in this work with a mix of emotions: fear, excitement, shame, disgust, etc. For most, it’s a completely new experience.
There is greater reward in doing this work! Every single youth left the workshop with a sense of accomplishment and pride in community and food.
With their shared and individual backgrounds in youth work and traditional land-based knowledge, Chenise and James realized they had something very special to share with youth in their community.
Growing an Idea
Not really knowing where to go next, we invited one of the youth out with us for a day on the land. At just 11 years old, his Mom had him up and ready to leave the house by 5 am and we embarked on our journey into the duck blind. That day, we spent about 13 hours hunting for ducks and walking through the woods identifying medicines.
We were hooked. We understood our mission and vision for our youth: facilitating land-based learning opportunities rooted in Mi’kmaw values, through mentoring and workshops.
From this day, Reclaiming Our Roots: Land Based Learning for Urban Indigenous Youth was born. We approached Heartwood: Centre for Community Youth Development to host our project as our partnering organization, jotted our first thoughts onto an old cereal box, and began searching for grants to make our vision a reality. We will forever be grateful to our first and continued support from Inspirit Foundation, which has allowed us to plant the seeds of our work and to grow into who we are today. As well, to LOVE Nova Scotia for inviting us to host our first workshop at their Provincial Leadership Camp in 2018, and for continuing to invite us to grow together in the spirit of youth healing and leadership.
Since then, with the help of our partners, parents, youth and Elders, we have had mentoring relationships with around 15 youth, designed and delivered workshops and events to hundreds, and deepened our understanding of the work to include community stewardship and food security.
We look forward to developing Reclaiming Our Roots into a more cohesive and strategic suite of programming including Men’s Healing workshops, work with children and families, and ensuring that our mentoring opportunities are available to the most vulnerable youth in our communities.
We take pride in our commitment and relationships with youth, but understand that our most valuable role is to facilitate opportunities for youth to develop and maintain a relationship to the land.
You can hear more about our origin story in a video interview that we conducted with National Centre for Collaboration in Indigenous Edcuatione (NCCIE) here.