Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise receives Peace & Reconciliation grant for Youth to Youth Experience

The 2025 Youth to Youth Truth and Reconciliation Experience was held in Nova Scotia. This year it will be held in Ohsweken, March 22-29. 

Chris Abbott

Editor

The Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise took the lead raising funds for a $75,000 Rotary Global Grant to foster Peace and Reconciliation.

The global grant, with contributed funding from Rotary clubs including Brantford, St. Catharines, Hamilton-Stoney Creek, Niagara Falls and Toronto area clubs, along with South Portland-Cape Elizabeth, Maine, and District 7090, will support the upcoming Youth to Youth Truth and Reconciliation Experience to be held at Chiefswood Park in Ohsweken, March 22-29.

Several Rotary clubs in the local district made donations, explained Marjorie Dawson, co-chair of the Rotary District 7090 Honouring Indigenous Peoples committee, and those were matched by the district. Rotary Internation matched 80 per cent of the district contribution.

“Basically, for every $1 the local clubs put in, it ends up being (nearly) $3.”

The Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise contributed $3,700 to the project.

“Our club organized it – we came up with the idea, we wrote up a grant proposal, and we (Norfolk Sunrise) went to a whole bunch of other clubs and said ‘Here’s what we’d like to do… We would like to sponsor this project – Youth to Youth. Would you put some money into this?’ And we got the grant - $75,000 was the total amount we got from everybody.”

The Y2Y gathering brings 25 Indigenous and 25 non-Indigenous youth leaders, ages 14-18, from across Canada together for a week of cultural teachings and reconciliation sharing circles. Two youth from each Rotary District are eligible.

“We are very pleased to be hosting this year’s gathering at (Six Nations of the Grand River) and thrilled to have youth leaders from across Canada working together for true reconciliation,” said Jim Dawson, co-chair of the Rotary District 7090 Honouring Indigenous Peoples committee in a media release.

Before they go, youth will have five training sessions.

“We will spend the week with Knowledge Keepers and Elders from the area that we’re in, and have all sorts of learning stuff and activities,” said Marjorie.

“It’s just amazing. These young people are really interested, really good, and already really involved in their schools and their communities, and these young people come away saying, ‘This has just changed my life.’ They make really great connections, and they stay together online, communicating with each other.

“It’s really exciting, really neat to see the wonderful teaching that happens through the week.” This year’s Y2Y experience will start with truth about residential schools with Phyllis Webstad, founder of the Orange Shirt Society. There will be teaching on peace treaties, illustrated by wampum belts, and hands-on cultural learning making wampum belts and traditional rattles. Elders and Knowledge Keepers will include Diane Longboat, Ken Maracle, Norma Jacobs and Frank Miller (Tehahenteh) with deep understanding of Haudenosaunee culture and traditional knowledge to provide teachings to participants. The week will end with traditional dances.

“Jim and I will both be there, and helping with the organization throughout the week,” Marjorie noted. “We have attended and participated in previous ones.”

The Rotary global grant funding is targeted to the unique nature of this year’s program as it will be held entirely on reserve at Six Nations Chiefswood Park, and the food for the program will be by Indigenous chefs, adding an immersive element to the event which is now in its fourth year.

“It will be like a total immersion week,” said Marjorie. The first Youth to Youth Truth and Reconciliation Experience was held in Manitoba, then British Columbia. Last year it was in Nova Scotia.

ROTARY INTERNATIONAL

The Rotary Club of Norfolk Sunrise is a local chapter of Rotary International, a global network of 1.4 million neighbors, friends, leaders, and problem-solvers who see a world where people unite and take action to create lasting change – ‘across the globe, in our communities, and in ourselves.’