Investing in Community

As a mutual aid foundation, Nii’kinaaganaa supports the material, spiritual, and cultural well-being of our Indigenous communities. But one of the most powerful aspects of mutual aid is that it restores and reaffirms agency for the dispossessed. Those we help become those who can help. By alleviating some of the burden Indigenous people carry, we create stability and free up space for them to join us as allies against the oppressive colonial systems that cause those burdens. In this way, your donations aren’t charity, but investments in people fighting for the same just world you are.

The distinction between mutual aid and charity is an important one. In Disorienting Neoliberalism Benjamin L McKean warns: “If we perceive distant others as akin to drowning children, we will never expect to see any return or benefit from our assistance and consequently will be more likely to perceive only the costs of our action—and perhaps less likely to act.” Support rooted in pity is devoid of empowerment—it’s a dead end that strips a person of their agency. Support rooted in solidarity, however, is a loving act of resistance that reaffirms agency, strengthens community, and gives a voice back to those silenced by the status quo who are therefore uniquely qualified to speak out against it.

With that said, let’s take a look at two organizations Nii’kinaaganaa supports that help alleviate the burden of the oppressed and create stability that allows them to live with dignity, give back to their communities, and help us fight the good fight.

Meet Debbie Ironbow—a member of Waterhen Lake First Nations, resident of Saskatoon, and part of the Blue Feather outreach team. As the mother of someone tragically lost to the MMIWG2S crisis, Debbie began her outreach work helping young Indigenous mothers with food during the pandemic. Initially, this work was facilitated entirely by Debbie’s pension. With our support and your donations over the last couple of years, her team (consisting of her grandchildren and community volunteers) has been able to feed whole families and care for the houseless community. To date, Blue Feather has provided 700 healthy and hot meals, assembled 243 family food hampers, given out over 12 baby welcoming baskets, and much more. Reflecting on the impact mutual aid can have, Debbie said: 

Once when we were handing out warming items, an elderly gentleman came and hugged me, crying in my arms. He kept saying how we were angels to him. When people are treated with care and respect, the outcome is life changing. Some of the families we’ve worked with for a few years have now stabilized and become contributors to their communities.

Now let’s meet the Black Indigenous Harm Reduction Alliance (BIHRA): a grassroots group of Black and Indigenous community workers in Montreal that centres the lived experiences and voices of 2SLGBTQ+ youth, substance users, and sex workers and champions the need for access to self-determined and holistic health services. Currently led by Anna Aude and Sasha Simmons, BIHRA was formed in 2013 after noticing a lack of Black- or Indigenous-centred harm reduction organizations and representation as leaders in harm reduction initiatives (despite long histories of kinship and community-based responses to these needs). In addition to centring and supporting these vulnerable groups, BIHRA aims to expand the understanding of harm reduction to include environmental violence, and the criminalization of youth, sex workers, street-involved peoples, and 2SLGBTQ+ people. They do this through peer-to-peer discussions, street-based outreach, harm reduction education, and advocacy work that strengthens ties between Black and Indigenous individuals and communities. When asked what it means to have the support of your donations, Anna and Sasha said:

Working with Nii’kinaaganaa has allowed us to provide more stable support to our community members. Before we began this partnership, we frequently received requests for small cash allowances that folks could use to meet their urgent needs. We could offer basic supplies that were meaningful but could not cover expenses like rent, medications, and hydro bills. This partnership has allowed us to re-distribute more funds on a monthly basis to provide a small sense of stability and nurture ongoing relationships. 

And from one of their community members who received support:

More than anything, I want to say thank you a lot for this monthly income that helps me with my needs—I just bought some new warm clothing and groceries that I need for the rest of the week.

Anna and Sasha insightfully noted that community members who receive support are situated in their own webs of connection: “When we can help meet their needs, people are more able to contribute to the wellbeing of their community in different ways like mutual support, raising kids, defending the land, and sharing knowledge and resources.” So if you take one thing away from this month’s newsletter, it should be this: those we help become those who can help.

Thanks for reading and supporting,
The Nii’kinaaganaa Team

“Elite solutions to poverty are always about managing poor people and never about redistributing wealth.”
-Dean Spade, Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis