Auntie Lens

She is an alumni of the University of Winnipeg, with a political science and business administration degree, and brings a fresh focus to the business of arts administration. Allison returns to her hometown, Winnipeg, from the Banff Centre, where she was Program Manager at the Indigenous Arts Department. Previously, Allison served as Art and Business Manager at Yamaji Art, an Aboriginal art centre in Australia, and was the General Manager of Collective of Black Artists in Toronto. Allison was the Programming and Events Coordinator at the Northern Life Museum & Cultural Centre in Fort Smith, North West Territories, and was the first non-Indigenous staff member at Urban Shaman Gallery in Winnipeg. Allison advocates for racialized and disenfranchised groups to decolonize institutions of power from the ground up. She is exceptionally skilled on issues of equity and a powerful and transformative voice for anti-racism action. Allison’s institutional critique articulates the creation of safe spaces for underserved communities within the institution.

Jenny Western is an artist, writer, and curator based in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She holds an undergraduate degree in History from the University of Winnipeg and a Masters in Art History and Curatorial Practice from York University in Toronto. While completing her graduate studies, she accepted a position at the Art Gallery of Southwestern Manitoba in Brandon where she held the position of Curator and later became the AGSM’s Adjunct Curator and is now and independent curator. Western has curated exhibitions and programs across Canada and she makes up one-third of the Sobey Award nominated art collective The Ephemerals. Western is of European, Oneida, and Stockbridge-Musee descent and a member of the Brothertown Indian Nation of Wisconsin.

Maggie Yeboah was born and raised in Ghana, West Africa. She migrated to Canada in 1981.

She is a Social Worker/Community Outreach Worker with Hope Centre Health Care where she has worked for 15 years now. She has a special interest in Community development and in Families services and she is very active in a variety of community and cultural organizations.

Maggie is member of the Ghanaian Union of Manitoba for over 35 years now where she served as the President of the organization, the Vice, the Secretary, and the Social Secretary, respectively.

She is a Member of the African Communities of Manitoba Inc. (ACOMI) and seats on the Board as a Volunteer Staff Rep. Maggie has been volunteering as the ACOMI Resource Centre Coordinator for 12 years now. She has also been volunteering for the African Pavilion/ Folklorama as the Culinary Co-Chair in the kitchen for 18 years and a dancer for 22yrs with the Pavilion.

She is on the Board of Directors for Huron Child Care for 20 years now and she is presently the Secretary for the Board.

Maggie seats on the Executive Board of the Ethnocultural Council of Manitoba-Stronger Together, which works collaboratively in empowering ethno-cultural groups to create an inclusive and a welcoming city and province for all refugees and immigrants. She is presently the Board Secretary.

She is a Member of the Access Without Fear Committee, an organization that ensures that all residents, including undocumented migrants, have access to all city services regardless of their immigration status without fear.

Maggie has been a member of the Crestview Park Free Methodist Church, here in Winnipeg for almost 40 years since she arrived in Canada and now serves on the Nominee Board.

She has been working with the Planning Committee that organizes the Annual Multiculturalism and Pow Wow Gathering for the past three years in collaboration with the White Buffalo Spiritual Society

Important aspect of her life is family: her husband, four adult children and her extended family. Maggie loves to volunteer in the Community and help individuals in need.

Tasha Spillett (she/her/hers) draws her strength from both her Inninewak (Cree) and Trinidadian bloodlines. She is a celebrated educator, poet, and emerging scholar. Tasha is most heart-tied to contributing to community-led work that centres on land and water defence, and the protection of Indigenous women and girls. Tasha is currently working on her Ph.D. in Education through the University of Saskatchewan, where she holds a Vanier Canada Award.

In her work as a doctoral student, she is weaving in her cultural identity, and commitment to community to produce a body of research that echoes Indigenous women’s demands for justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and Two-Spirit People. Her work is a continuation of the resistance against the assault of colonialism that she has inherited.

As a leader, internationally educated teacher, and activist, with over 20 years of experience in community development, Titi Tijani is a pillar in the African Community. She holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Human Ecology from University of Manitoba and certificates in Education, Community Leadership, Trainer and Conflict Resolution. She has worked with Manitoba Housing since 1998 and currently as Manager of Tenant Services, supporting vulnerable Manitobans access housing.

Her career in social services, education and her work with organizations like the African Communities of Manitoba Inc., Manitoba Lung Association, Youth Justice Committee, Nigerian Association of Manitoba, the Black Community Collective and the Police Accountability Coalition have allowed her to support thousands of community members and organizations in their pursuit of building a more diverse, sustainable, and equitable Manitoba.

It is for these reasons that Titi has been recognized by the Spirit of a Community Builder Award, the Premier’s Volunteer Service Award Certificate of Recognition, one of 100 most fascinating Manitobans in 2020 and most recently as recipient of Manitoba Honour 150.

Chimwemwe Undi is a poet, writer and articling student living on Treaty 1 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Her writing has been featured in Brick, Border Crossings Magazine, and Room Magazine, on BBC World, and at the Edinburgh International Writers Festival. She is an alumna of the Banff Centre Emerging Writers’ Intensive, is an editor with CV2 Magazine and was named one of CBC Manitoba’s Future 40 in 2020.

Karen Sharma (she/her) is a first generation South Asian living in Winnipeg – Treaty One territory. Karen is currently the Acting Executive Director of the Manitoba Human Rights Commission, where she has worked for the past six years. As the Commission’s Executive Director, Karen ‘s job to lead promotion and protection of human rights in Manitoba through administration of Manitoba’s human rights complaints system; the development of policy and research; and the delivery of human rights education. In addition, Karen is a co-organizer with Queer People of Colour Winnipeg, an organization that creates programming that centres and celebrates Two-Spirit, Queer and Trans Black, Indigenous, people of colour. Karen also co-chairs the Board of Directors of the Women’s Health Clinic. In her spare time, she can be found DJing local dance parties and quilting, both under the pseudonym Lucky Sharms. She lives with her partner and pets in Winnipeg’s North End.

Tani Miki is an arts administrator, curator and writer. She is a settler of Japanese descent based on Treaty 1 Territory/Winnipeg. Her grandparents and parents were among the Japanese Canadians forcibly removed from British Columbia because of racist governmental policies and interned during the Second World War. Her family was placed on a sugar beet farm in southern Manitoba, enduring hardships and backbreaking work as cheap labourers. Her parents were active in the Redress movement for Japanese Canadians that culminated in 1988 with an acknowledgement of the past injustices and a redress agreement with the Canadian government. Her own art research focuses on memory, trauma, and spirituality.

My name is Tayo Babalola and I am a student-athlete at the University of Manitoba. I have been running and competing for 15 years and have really loved growing and improving over all of those years.

As a Bison athlete, I have been fortunate enough to meet people from all over Canada and I celebrate the diversity within the athletics community.

Competing at the USport level has given me confidence and I strive to help and encourage others to also reach their goals.

I have had the opportunity to work with and coach Black and Indigenous youth in Winnipeg and surrounding areas through Athletics Manitoba to help encourage and build confidence through sport.
As a second-generation immigrant, my goal is to do my best to speak out against injustice and use my voice to bring change.

Jeannie Whitebird is an Anishinaabe member of Rolling River First Nation. At nine years old she became part of the federal/provincial policy of forced removals of Indigenous children from their families and communities, and was denied her culture and heritage and lost her language in a period known as the Sixties Scoop. As a young adult she grew to defy the odds, striving to acquire her own sense of self-worth by envisioning the possibility of searching for her own unique identity as an Indigenous person. This set her on a lifelong path toward self-discovery and healing. She returned to Manitoba, reuniting with her family and her community. Along the way she began to take hold of her culture and heritage and began her journey towards language reclamation.

Jeannie now lives in the city of Selkirk, Manitoba where she has raised her two young adult children, Asa and Alvina Red Eagle. She maintains her commitment to the community by reminding herself to take responsibility for the role and part she plays within her community. She’s also aware of her own unique story and how it’s played out in the lives of her children, and to the community members who have bared witness to her journey in transforming adversity into inspiration.

Jeannie’s determination to bring beauty and spiritual connection to the community is fierce. She’s always felt that visual art is the most dramatic way to encapsulate feelings, memories, knowledge and share education about Indigenous history. As a Traditional Helper, she brings a wealth of lived experiences by having applied the Seven Sacred Teachings to her daily life, while also incorporating those elements into her own unique artistic style as an emerging artist. The mural art projects she’s been involved with from conceptual design all the way through to installation of finished projects are; The Healing Path, Nookomkis Gikinoo’amaagowinan – Grandmother Teachings, Sacred Spirits of Turtle Island MMIWG Legacy of Love Mural – Commemorating the History and Legacy of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and Mashkawigaabawid Abinoojiiyag – Stand Strong Children, Commemorating the History and Legacy of Residential School.

Jeannie understands the more people are knowledgeable about Indigenous roles in society through various cultural teachings depicted in visual art, the more communities will be able to have conversations and create positive safe relationships between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.

Karina Cardona Claros (she/her) is a disabled activist, artist and public scholar. Informed by her experiences and observations as a refugee and person with a spinal cord injury, her work as a cultural geographer has focused on building a more just and emancipatory future by locating, exposing and transforming contemporary practices of exclusion and oppression. As a disabled woman of colour, her efforts to reclaim space, power and voice coalesce into many forms and paths, including leadership on research initiatives, program development, policy advocacy, volunteer boards, community arts projects, collaborative storytelling, and networks of community care. Key projects include: Kids in the Community (West End BIZ), Building an Age-Inclusive Society (Institute of Urban Studies), Mobility in the Ableist City (Centre for Environmental Health Equity), Crip the Program (Youth Agencies Alliance), Disability and Climate Justice (Prairie Climate Centre).

Erica is Cree/Ojibway from Peguis First Nation. She is a proud mother, a multi-award winning documentary filmmaker and entrepreneur. With over 10 years of experience in the industry, Erica established her media company, Kejic Productions, in 2017 and became a full time entrepreneur fulfilling her passion to share the stories of her community. She started her journey through a program called Just TV, a multimedia program for at risk youth in the inner City of Winnipeg. Through this program, Erica was able to better her life and gain extensive skills in the media industry.

Along with her passion for storytelling, is her passion to work with Indigenous youth in her community by reconnecting them to their culture and identity. Erica currently runs a cultural program at the Broadway Neighbourhood Centre and mentors youth in video production. The beauty of her culture continuously inspires her work and motivation of sharing the knowledge of her elders for future generations.