Our mandate is to simultaneously protect and teach traditional knowledge, and practitioners of that knowledge, while ensuring Indigenous peoples can access, learn, and use this knowledge to support their own communities. The community has told us to accomplish this by conducting our work in balance.

1. Establishing Protocols and Safeguards for Knowledge Protection:

• We are developing protocols to allow for engagement with traditional knowledge while protecting our children’s inheritance. When sacred knowledge is gifted, we must teach the story of how it was obtained to prevent others from taking it away.
• We will teach students about the different safeguards to protect stories, songs, spiritual items, and knowledge systems. Learners will reflect on how accountability measures are needed protect traditional knowledge.
• We will need to protect traditional knowledge from being misused and misappropriated as we teach that knowledge. Knowledge shared within the academy will be for the benefit of the community and not be claimed or resold by external institutions.
• Teachings and responsibilities will flow from our spirituality, encompassing the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual aspects of existence, and the interconnectedness and interdependence of all things. These are intertwined and enacted through ceremony.

2. Centering Elders and Land:

• We will teach learners how to treat Indigenous Elders and traditional knowledge keepers with equal respect as settler professional practitioners, not only as sources of information. Knowledge about traditional ceremonies, languages, and cultural practices will be passed down and be valued by learners who treat Elders with respect and humility.
• We will facilitate opportunities for Elders to exchange and build knowledge with each other and to share it with students and scholars. We will empower Elders to bridge between cultural domains and provide crucial teachings on tradition, history, culture, values, customs, and language.

• Connecting to the land and practicing ceremonies are essential to revitalizing sacred Indigenous practices of education and healing. The land is sacred and interconnected--a living classroom for ancestral wisdom.
• Our curriculum emphasizes hands-on practice with Elders and traditional knowledge keepers to understand Indigenous ways of life. This includes learning about how to work with the land using traditional methods, respecting traditional medicines, and understanding ethical gathering practices.

3. Enacting "Mîyo-Wâhkohtowin" (Working Together and Interconnectedness):

• We will actively encourage teachers and learners to pass traditional knowledge from older generations to younger ones to reinforce kinship and preserve cultural heritage. Learners should be encouraged and facilitated to engage with Elders in their own communities.
• We will create platforms for students to connect directly with Elders and knowledge keepers fosters a deeper understanding and appreciation of traditional knowledge.

• Recognizing that life is ceremony reinforces the deep and intrinsic connection we all have to the entirety of Creation every day. Living with a deliberate consciousness of our place within this great web and engaging with all forms of life with respect and reverence will keep us accountable for what we know.
• Actively practicing Mîyo-Wâhkohtowin will strengthen Indigenous nations and traditional systems. Learners will be encouraged to give back to their community and promote this spirit with others.

4. Empowering Indigenous Self-Determination in Education:

• Our curriculum is deeply rooted within traditional ways of life--Nêhîyaw Pimâtsiwin (the Cree way of life). We empower the identity of all people seeking a connection to the natural world.
• We must address the intellectual, spiritual, emotional, and physical development of learners and teachers to revitalize the identities and pride of Indigenous peoples and decolonize the minds of all who want to reconnect with the land and the spirit world.
• We create a culturally safe environment where participants feel respected, valued, and supported in their learning journey, acknowledging diverse backgrounds and experiences. This is in contrast to culturally unsafe practices that some learners and teachers may have experienced previously with traditional knowledge and culture in Indigenous and non-Indigenous settings.

• We recognize that Indigenous people are entitled to learn from within our own cultures, with our languages being privileged in education. We advance the vision of ensuring Indigenous spirituality to flourish for future generations.