Taking Common Ground to Canada

The invitation comes “in recognition of your work on Indigenous-settler relations and the commonalities between Indigenous Peoples in Aotearoa and Scotland”.

This summit will be the foundational gathering for the International Resilience Network which will emphasise new kinds of collaboration across cultures, disciplines, sectors and national borders, galvanizing powerful collective capacities in support of local social-ecological innovations in participating communities.

We are therefore seeking funds to take four people to the summit with Common Ground.

Three of us will deliver papers as a panel entitled Te Whare Tapu o Nga Puhi – The Sacred Shrine of Nga Puhi, focused on the relationship between people, and between people and the land and waterways.

Those three are:

Our kaikorero (orator) Richard Hotere (Nga Puhi Nui Tonu, Tainui, Te Arawa and Clan Douglas)

Common Ground storyteller, Reva Mendes (Nga Puhi Nui Tonu) weaver, artist and Whanau Ora Navigator.

Mairi Gunn (Pakeha with Scottish ancestry), film maker, installation artist and part time lecturer in Digital Design at AUT University, Aotearoa.

Travelling with us will be Mike McCree, an audio visual technician and file wrangler, providing vital technical support for the complex video installation Common Ground.