The Gathering was an inspiring day for our Manitoba community builders to come together and learn, grow, connect, and Imagine our Future. Over 350 participants, presenters, and volunteers came together at St. John’s high school for a transformative day.
The Gathering Opening was a refreshing start to the day. We explored the theme of Imagining our Future: Moving to Transformative Action together through Indigenous wisdom, knowledge sharing, and storytelling from around the world. First, as has been tradition for several years, Elder Mae Louise Campbell and Jamie Goulet from Clan Mothers Healing Village brought a blessing, a song, and Indigenous wisdom to open our hearts. Their presence helps ground the day and center us for learning together.
CCEDNet’s Associate Director, Sarah Leeson-Klym talked about the theme – how our Design Team gathered in the spring and shared the need to acknowledge the challenges we’re facing and the desire to move beyond day-to-day responses toward real change in our communities. She noted that this ‘futurism’ or ‘futures literacy’ is a practice we can cultivate to strengthen our community work, thinking further forward to a transformed world that looks more like our vision so we make good decisions today.
Our plenary storyteller, Amna Burki from StoriesMatter, then took the stage and stole the show! She brought five stories from various global traditions that demonstrated how Indigenous wisdom and folklore can ground us in history and knowledge we need to make transformative decisions. She wove together humour, wisdom, engaged actions and participation, and key messages that strengthened our understanding of the theme.
Artbeat Studio offered us the opportunity to take this theme conversation further and express our ideas and hopes through art by leaving our mark (literally and figuratively) with stamping and painting.
We continued to learn and connect throughout the day – from presentations and panels, by participating in small group sharing and discussions, and through conversations in 35 workshops that were hosted by local community builders. Wide-ranging topics included organizing and advocacy in action, the transformative power of education and storytelling, the impact of social enterprises and social finance, and navigating change. A local artist/activist spoke about collectively weaving a better Winnipeg, and another led us through imagining a kinder food future.
As one participant said, “each action for change, however small, matters when it is done in community.” The Gathering of Community Builders continues to be a day of inspiration and connection, and moves us to create the change in the world that we imagine.
Thank you to the students from Red River College Polytech’s School of Indigenous Education, and Social Innovation and Community Development Programs for volunteering at the event!
Photos by Travis Ross
Thank you to our 2025 Funders and Partners for supporting the Gathering!
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