Colleen Cardinal Hele

Topic:  Child Welfare and MMIWG Survivorship

Background:

Colleen Hele- Cardinal is co-founder and Executive Director of the National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network. She is nehiyaw iskwew from Saddle Lake First Nation, Alberta but adopted and raised in Sault Ste Marie, Ontario.   She is the author of Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh (Raised somewhere else): A 60s Scoop Adoptee’s Story of Coming Home, which was released through Rosewood Press. Colleen received the Ontario Premier’s Award in November 2018 for Outstanding Community work in her field and the 2019 CBC Trail Blazer award. Recently, she helped spearhead an innovative GIS mapping project Mapping the Indigenous Adoptee Disapora with the  Pe-kīwēwin Project with Amnesty International.

Heartwork:

Colleen has successfully organized four national gatherings for 60s scoop survivors while giving context on the making of Canada, treaty relationships and the dehumanization of Indigenous people through policy, media and public speaking engagements. “Most importantly,” Colleen shares, “I’m the proud mother of four grown children and I love spending my free time with my granddaughters.”

Indigenous Women:

Colleen continues her involvement with several initiatives, including Families of Sisters in Spirit and the Nobel Women’s Initiative Sister to Sister Mentorship program to address gender-based violence, using her skills as a public speaker and candidly sharing stories as a family member of murdered and missing Indigenous women and the impacts of the 60s Scoop. Colleen works tirelessly to draw critical connections between genocidal colonial child welfare removal policies and her lived experiences and those of women in her family. “I’ll continue to raise the issue of the 60s scoop as well as build community support for 60s scoop survivors and bring international attention to the displacement and loss of identity 60s scoop survivors have experienced.”