iE – Indigenous Emergence

Stereotypes have often created a climate of despair and hopelessness for indigenous people whether in North America or elsewhere in the world – “the Indian problem,” “ignorant and uneducated,” “fixated in the past,” “unsophisticated.” When one is a problem to be solved, hope is dissipated. The emerging generations are at risk of carrying this despair forward into the future unless a different paradigm is introduced.

iEmergence focuses on the successes of their peoples in the past with a view to recreating the climate in which they occurred – but in a contemporary context. In brief, the image of past success creates the impetus for future accomplishment.

The need for this program is best understood in the words of an indigenous lawyer and community advocate…

The answers to our present and future lie in our past. We created beautiful arts, language and culture, and had a vibrant economy. How did this come about? Not from laying on the couch, eating potato chips and cashing welfare cheques. …the issues are not an “aboriginal” problem – rather, they are a result of a history of systemic violence that can apply to any group, regardless of ethnic background … from North American inner-city communities to indigenous groups in developing nations. We can change it if we are willing…

From: Dances with Dependency: Out of Poverty Through Self-reliance - Calvin Helin, Orca Spirit Publishing

The iEmergence Program
iEmergence is conceived as a way for indigenous youth/young adults and their families to engage in culturally appropriate holistic transformational development opportunities while training next generation leaders. Transformation through co-facilitation of indigenous leaders is the goal – transformation that will bring lasting benefit to the emerging generation and those that will immediately follow.

Asset-based planning and development methodologies, contextualized in the Native North American community over the past twenty years (in concert with the work of World Vision) and, the Awhi (pr. Uffee) process, developed through the past fifteen years of Maori-led community development work in New Zealand, provide the means by which local initiatives will be identified and implemented.

Building on the pattern and impact of the World Christian Gathering of Indigenous People (WCGIP), the beginning of the project is the gathering of young adults from regional indigenous groups. The gatherings, emphasizing cultural affirmation and exchange, serve as a primary means to identify community aspirations and need in the emerging generations. The regional focus will also provide the foundation for a social and cultural networking strategy supplemented by the growing use of technology-driven social networking platforms. Obvious leaders are then engaged in the second element of the program

The second element is an approach called Osmosis. Osmosis recognizes the dearth of emerging indigenous leadership and, in part, assigns that lack to the loss of traditional leader recognition and development. Historically, Learning to lead took place as younger leaders engaged with mentors in the day-to-day tasks of leading a community and family. Many of these pathways are gone or have become dysfunctional. Osmosis seeks to restore them through a “coaching model” of learning with indigenous mentors – leaders in community, business and sustainable living practice.

Third is the establishment – by the leadership identified and trained in element two as well as other partners in the initiative – of fully integrated, culturally enriched and locally specific economic development initiatives in the local and international marketplace. This will include cultural tourism (in-person, interactive, internet-driven), arts and crafts import and export and, locally sustainable food provision practices. Not only will the economic initiatives provide local incomes, they will also ensure the overall initiative is funded meaningfully and fairly in the long-term.


Click this link to see the 2009 iE newsletter.