This Initiative was developed by the Industrial Areas Foundation (of which Common Good is a member) with focus on the impacts and history of relationships between the dominant society and Indigenous Peoples of the four colonized countries of our Affiliate Organizations in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. In the long term, it is meant to eliminate systemic barriers in the current dominant structures by creating conditions that protect and expand Indigenous sovereignty and self-governance while creating racial equity for all. One part of this process is to maximize the existing capacity of Indigenous organizations to tell their own stories and become vehicles for their members to find and exercise their inherent power. At the same time we focus on creating durable relational ties between Indigenous and non-Indigenous organizations, developed at the speed of trust to form long term commitments that lead to an equitable future.

This collective work was led by a group of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. 

The international team agreed that to understand and achieve racial equity it requires: 

• People who are oppressed by colonization and ongoing racism must secure and expand capacity, power and authority to govern themselves, this includes asserting or expanding sovereignty;
• Those experiencing the most immediate and pressing realities rooted in systemically embedded racism must be supported in developing capacity to set priorities to shape solutions informed by their experience;
• Settlers that benefit of the taking of Indigenous land and sovereignty, must deeply wrestle with the truth of colonization on a large-scale to make a sustained commitment to racial justice that confronts white supremacy, complicity and complacency;
• Strengthen the capacity of Indigenous led organizations to engage disconnected members of their community in ways that give them more agency as individuals and collective power as a group to address race-based disparities; and,
• Indigenous/oppressed communities and settlers must engage together in a reckoning process (“Making Wolf'' or Makarrata) to bring them together as partners and accomplices to engage a critical mass in understanding the impact of colonization, their ongoing complicity in its legacy, shift power, uphold sovereignty to Indigenous Peoples and addressing immediate disparities.

The local team:

• Has worked closely with the CSKT Séliš-Ql̓ispé Culture Committee to approve any local content we share in our training, as well as share the many resources they have compiled, written, and published about their history and this area;
• Partnered with Common Good members to provide trained small group facilitators;
• Is here to provide support to the attendee and their organization through the emotional process of going through this training.