UAlberta Faculty of Law Ph.D. Candidate Hadley Friedland ('09 LL.M.)University of Alberta Faculty of Law is proud to announce that its Ph.D. Candidate Hadley Friedland ('09 LL.M.) is a facilitator of, as well as a presenter at, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Education Day taking place in Edmonton on March 27, 2014, as part of the Alberta National Event (March 27-30, 2014).
According to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) program, "Education Day is dedicated to all of the children who went to residential schools and all of the children who will help create a future of new and better relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal peoples in Canada."1
The TRC Education Day Edmonton, geared toward junior high and high school youth and educators, is held as part of each TRC National Event. According to Viola Thomas, TRC Community Relations, the primary goals of this day of "Fostering Reconciliation through Education" are to:
- Promote an understanding of how Indian Residential Schools have impacted intergenerational survivors (children of survivors) families/communities.
- Raise awareness with educators on resources available to incorporate into curricula.
- Provide a youth centered focus to enable the TRC to hear their ideas to foster reconciliation with all youth.
- Honour and celebrate the resilience of intergenerational survivors and survivors through a youth tribute of expression.
AWN Youth Council artwork for TRC Education Day Edmonton"My graduate work focuses on applying adapted legal scholarship methods to stories, to engage with Indigenous legal traditions in a robust and respectful way," said TRC Facilitator and presenter Hadley Friedland (Ph.D. Candidate, '09 LL.M.). "The goal of this method is to identify and articulate Cree and other Indigenous laws, in a way that makes them easier to access, understand and apply today, within and across Indigenous, professional and academic communities."
Hadley Friedland has been the Research Coordinator for a national research project applying this method to explore issues of harm and conflict across six different Indigenous legal traditions and with seven partner communities across Canada. The project "Accessing Justice and Reconciliation" was funded by the Ontario Law Foundation, run out of the University of Victoria's Indigenous Law Research Unit, and headed by Friedland's co-supervisor, Dr. Val Napoleon. Project partners included the University of Victoria Faculty of Law, the Indigenous Bar Association, and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. More information and resources can be found on the project website: http://indigenousbar.ca/indigenouslaw/
AWN Youth Council artwork for TRC Education Day Edmonton"We were delighted to be asked to work with one of our partner communities, the Aseniwuche Winewak Nation [AWN], to present what Cree legal traditions can teach us about the work of reconciliation for the final TRC Education Day Edmonton, taking place on March 27th," Friedland said. "The title of our presentation is: 'Indigenous Traditions of Reconciliation'. For the past few months, I have been working closely with a local teacher, Jaeda Feddema, interested AWN community members, the AWN Youth Council, and the local drum group, the James Gang Drummers, on an interactive presentation for this event. This presentation will show the strengths and wisdom within Cree legal traditions that can be applied to reconciliation, through traditional ways of learning, including drumming, story-telling, language, art and regalia. The community and youth participation has been amazing, and the resulting presentation will be not only informative but also hopeful and inspiring - a testament to the strength, wisdom, vitality and resilience within Indigenous communities. I am both honoured and humbled to be facilitating this community-led presentation."
Creating New Stories: Understanding and Re-building Justice and Reconciliation Traditions to Foster Strong and Healthy Communities (March 27, 2014 at 10:10am - 11:30am, Hall D, Salon 10, Shaw Conference Centre, Edmonton)
In describing the 'Creating News Stories' interactive session that she is involved in, Hadley Friedland spoke of the many Indigenous peoples who are working toward recovering their own legal traditions in order to rebuild strong and healthy communities. This interactive session presents some of the ways everyone can learn about justice and reconciliation from Cree and Anishinabek stories and other community based resources. It will explore how communities might apply the wisdom in these stories today to overcome some of the intergenerational impacts of the residential schools.
Presenters will include representatives from the Cree community of Aseniwuche Winewak Nation in Alberta and their youth council, the Anishinabek community of Cape Croker in Ontario (Lindsay Borrows) and Hadley Friedland, who is the Research Coordinator for the Indigenous Bar Association's "Accessing Justice and Reconciliation" Project.
AWN Youth Council artwork for TRC Education Day Edmonton
Additional Information:
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Click to download Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC) program 1
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If you are unable to attend the TRC event, the Weir Law Library at the UAlberta Faculty of Law will be showing the live streaming of this event in room 2-116.
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Alternatively the Alberta National Event will be live streamed at http://www.trc.ca/
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You can also follow the TRC Twitter account @TRC_en and if you are Tweeting use #ABNE
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Click link for the TRC Canada Facebook page
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University of Alberta Faculty of Law Ph.D. Candidate Hadley Friedland ('09 LL.M.) is currently working on her doctorate, at the University of Alberta Faculty of Law, with a Vanier Graduate Scholarship. The Vanier support enabled Hadley to return to her partner's small but vibrant Cree community of the Aseniwuche Winewak, to do her doctoral work. Hadley is also a recent recipient a Talent Award from the Government of Canada's Social Science and Humanities Research Council's (SSHRC). The SSHRC Impact Award funds that Friedland received are supporting her presentation at the TRC Education Day Edmonton.