Wiikwemkoong Elder recognized with a 2024 Indspire Award for Culture, Heritage and Spirituality – Anishinabek News

February 15, 2024

WIIKWEMKOONG UNCEDED TERRITORY — Wiikwemkoong Elder Edna Manitowabi was recently recognized with a 2024 Indspire Award for Culture, Heritage and Spirituality, one of 12 recipients who will be honoured by Indspire on April 18 in Ottawa. The event marks the 31st anniversary of the Indspire Awards, which recognize Indigenous professionals and youth who demonstrate outstanding career achievement, promote self-esteem and pride for Indigenous communities, and provide inspirational role models for future generations.

“It’s quite an honour to be nominated by one of my peers and my colleagues because it has been a long journey,” Elder Manitowabi says, noting that she taught at Trent University’s Indigenous Studies department until she was 66-years-old. “It’s been an incredible journey, I’ve come a long way since my youth when I began searching, looking for our ways, Anishinaabe ways, and looking for life, really.”

Elder Manitowabi says she was in her teens or early 20s when she began searching for people she could talk to or ask questions about the traditional ways.

“I had the Residential School experience, so that was a trauma in my life that kind of held me back,” Elder Manitowabi says. “That was one of the reasons I was looking for knowledge, for our own ways of knowing. By the time I was 21, it became kind of like a hunger and a thirst. I was very fortunate in my 20s and early 30s that there were Elders that were put on my path that I could learn from and I was able to hang onto their coattails, so to speak, before they passed on.”

Read More: https://anishinabeknews.ca/2024/02/15/wiikwemkoong-elder-recognized-with-a-2024-indspire-award-for-culture-heritage-and-spirituality/