FNUniv’s highly anticipated NEW online course, Advancing Re(al)conciliation, officially launching on June 21st, National Indigenous Peoples Day

Regina, Saskatchewan: The Advancing Re(al)conciliation course is designed to educate through truth-telling, and to inspire action. The course provides all learners the opportunity to commit to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s Calls to Actions, offered through the First Nations University of Canada’s Indigenous Continuing Education Centre (ICEC).

The Advancing Re(al)conciliation course is for any individual or organization that wants to take steps on a personal journey toward reconciliation. The Calls to Actions #62 and #92 that are highlighted in the course call on government, corporate, and business sectors in Canada to activate and realize reconciliation efforts within their sectors, companies, and businesses in collaboration with Indigenous Peoples.

“Learners will learn how the past determined much of our present experiences and situations and explore current realities within the context of understanding the past as they ‘peel away’ the layers of colonial teaching, knowledge, understandings, positionalities, and experiences,” says Reila Bird, Director of ICEC.

“The goal is for learners to have an ‘actionable’ plan by the end of the course that responds to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action.”

Upon completion of the course, learners will be able to:

• identify colonial systems of oppression.
• identify how identity was shaped by colonialism.
• create and enact new understandings and relationships with Indigenous peoples.
• recognize the value of local Indigenous perspectives and approaches to healthy education and economic relationships and activities.

President of FNUniv, Dr. Jacqueline Ottmann says that it is important to recognize that the journey to reconciliation requires education, and re-education in Indigenous histories. “But it also requires us to expose the damages of coloniality,” she says.

“Through this course, learners can explore their own experiences with coloniality – it is well researched by the TRC and scholars alike, that every person who was educated by a Canadian education system, has been colonized – we recognize this and hope that what we created will help learners to start or continue their journey to decolonize. This hard work must be our priority for our next seven generations, yours, and mine.”

For more information on Advancing Re(al)conciliation, visit: https://iceclearning.fnuniv.ca/courses/advancing-re-al-conciliation

The media release is available here.