testimonials

  • We have worked with Ta7taliya and her team offering the Decolonizing Practises workshops for our leadership teams and most recently for our board of directors. These were extremely well facilitated workshops and Ta7taliya creates a safe and welcoming environment to meaningfully learn and unlearn about colonization and the historical and ongoing impacts on Indigenous people. The workshop is highly interactive and engaging and our staff and board members found great value on both personal and organizational levels. I love that our last workshop was co-facilitated by a young person- Savannah- and this demonstrates the commitment to mentorship and supporting our young community leaders. I highly recommend Ta7taliya and her team to help guide others through this critical and important work.

    Debbie Anderson Eng, CEO
    Pacific Community Resources Society

  • We at MPA Society are extremely grateful to have participated in the workshops conducted by Ta7talíya and the Nahanee Creative team. Through their engaging and thought-provoking sessions our teams were given a better understanding of some of the concepts and vocabulary which consciously and unconsciously perpetuate a colonial mindset and contribute to the erasure of Indigenous history and culture. Ta7talíya provided the framework needed to evaluate ourselves and our organization as a whole, and begin the process of undoing the ongoing harms of anti-Indigenous racism and colonial oppression. We hope to continue our partnership with Nahanee Creative to continue the process of decolonization and are thankful for the knowledge shared by Ta7talíya.

    Justin Sekiguchi – pronouns: he, him, Director, Operations,
    MPA Society

  • Michelle is a skilled facilitator, a truth teller, and a creator of invitations and opportunities that draw people into a conversation. With professionalism, personality and skill she led a group of non-Indigenous people into a discussion about colonization and its impacts. Instead of the conversation creating stressful tension, it created curiosity, self-reflection and opened up the group to sharing thoughts and ideas at a deeper level. Not only did we learn about Indigenous history, customs and ways of knowing, we learned more about our shared history and tangible ways we could move forward in building relationship and creating opportunities for reconciliation. Michelle’s work has created a foundation of trust and respect and a new way forward in our relationship with our First Nations colleagues.

    Karen Elliot, Mayor,
    District of Squamish

  • The Decolonizing Practices workshop was a powerful and moving experience for our staff group. We had started to have conversations about the colonial roots of education, however the framework provided by Michelle’s workshop gave us clear tools and points for thoughtful reflection that have helped us dig much deeper into the topic. Michelle is a skilled facilitator; she quickly created a safe space for all to reflect on their practices and beliefs, regardless of their background knowledge. She modelled how to have these potentially difficult conversations in a firm way that acknowledged different perspectives, but she always offered her thoughtful insight to further our thinking. The interactive game format of her workshop is an engaging metaphor with tangible, real life examples that provided starting points for meaningful conversations. Those conversations that started on the game board are still shaping our dialogue and practice – and will continue to make an impact as we engage in the complicated work of decolonization and reconciliation.

    Risha Golby, Principal,
    ¿uuqinak’uuh (Grandview) Elementary School

  • Excellent workshop. It was a great start for our Municipal Technical Advisory Committee on Indigenous Relations to gain an understanding about the complex and complicated process of decolonization. The board game really helped us understand the issues and the process of getting to reconciliation. And the facilitators, Michelle and Lloyd, are excellent trainers and provide easy to understand explanations to demystify the subject matter. We’ve received great feedback from our members following the workshop and I highly recommend the facilitators and Decolonizing Practices to anyone who wants to start the process of learning about decolonization.

    Marino Piombini, RPP, MCIP, Supervisor, Indigenous Relations,
    Metro Vancouver Regional District

  • The City of Vancouver staff have benefited tremendously from the unique training opportunities made possible by Nahanee Creative. The chance to learn directly from Sḵwx̱wú7mesh knowledge holders, on both the historical and contemporary realities of local Indigenous people, is unparalleled and powerful. As the City’s Equity Officer I look for ways to ground our work on social justice in Indigenous justice first, and Nahanee Creative is a unique and dependable partner in this. Recently, we formed a diverse, cross-departmental committee to lead the City’s work on equity, and we spend the first half-day of our work as a committee engaged in a game of Sinulhkay and Ladders. An engaging alternative to a presentation, the game promoted us to recall and talk through stories of institutional triumph and failure to decolonize our processes and mindsets. There was lots of opportunity for asking questions - both philosophical and practical – of the two capable facilitators, any many ideas were sparked about what we can do better. But what the game drove home most effectively was the sense that we need to stay in the game, even when we make mistakes and have setbacks. Nahanee Creative team’s expert facilitation of the opening and closing circles, along with the ceremonial elements, allowed committee members to be introduced to each other in a meaningful way and brought a sense of the sacred into our work. I cannot think of a better way to have set this committee up for the work we have ahead of us.

    Aftab Erfan, PhD, City of Vancouver’s Equity Officer,
    Office of the City Manager

  • Decolonization is a term that many non-Indigenous people may not be familiar with, let alone have the tools and knowledge to commence a personal or organizational journey of decolonization. Building on years of partnership and collaboration, the Real Estate Foundation of BC and Nahanee Creative invited all Healthy Watersheds Initiative project staff to join in Decolonizing Practices training through the fall of 2021. As a part of Healthy Watersheds Initiative’s commitment to advancing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, HWI and Nahanee Creative developed a customized training package called Decolonizing Watersheds. The intent was to provide a safe space to discuss personal experiences of colonization and empower settler and Indigenous peoples with practices that can help us all move beyond the trappings of colonization.

    Healthy Watersheds Initiative