Guest speakers

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Ms. Susan Walsh

Executive Director, USC Canada

After work with British Colombia’s Justice Institute in the early ’80s on gender and mediation programming, Susan shifted to international development work. A Canada World Youth contract in India in 1994 whet her appetite for more and she returned to Canada to take up a program officer position with USC Canada from 1985-1990. In 2004, Susan returned to the agency as its Executive Director, determined to apply lessons learned from a year of doctoral research among Indigenous potato farmers. In the interim, Susan served at the helm of Canada’s World Food Day Association and as the Director for Latin America Programs with Canadian Lutheran World Relief. In 2003, she completed her doctoral degree in development anthropology and will soon have a book out, entitled Trojan Horse Aid, that draws on her field research.

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Jacob (Mowegan) Wawatie

Jacob Wawatie, grandson of Kokom Lena was raised spending much of his early childhood with his family living off the land. In 1962, he began the formal European education system to emerge from its cultural roots. From his elders, he sustained the ancient skills passed down through countless generations of their Anishabe ancestry.  On the deathbed of his grandmother, Kokom Lena had told him .."I have taught you ...now teach them ...teach them well." Recieving both a traditional and formal education, Jacob worked to intergrate the traditional educational system within his communities, as well as in the public domain, developing curriculum and advising various projects relating to culture, nature and its environment.
Thus was the beginning  foundations of Kokomville Academy. Emerging from this background, it can be seen as “A Pathway to Nature", a guidance of the necessary footsteps to learn the resources of nature and the responsible and respectful use of them. Therefore, under these perceptions, we share our responsibilities as a caretakers of the land for the generations of tommorow.