Grand Challenges Canada funds 10 Indigenous-led projects with focus on social challenges

Ten projects are receiving grant funding from the Indigenous Innovation Initiative through its Advancing Indigenous Gender Equality through Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship program.

The grants — worth $250,000 each — fund projects developed by Indigenous-led organizations to address areas of social development such as pre- and post-natal health, sustainable beauty, human sex trafficking and sex exploitation, and food sovereignty and sustainability. A total of $2.5 million will be spent across all projects.

The Initiative was launched in 2018 and is hosted by Grand Challenges Canada, a Canadian organization that supports innovation and economic development in Canada and globally. It seeks to support Indigenous innovation across industries through access to capital, capacity-building, cultivating networks and driving interest in Indigenous innovation.

“Each group we heard from had remarkable ideas,” said Sara Wolfe, the director of Indigenous Innovation Initiatives. “We really heard from the community that they wanted to define the problem or challenge in their community, and the solution, so it then became important to us for the community to select the projects that they believed in.”

Recipients of the grant include the Cheakamus Foundation for Environmental Learning (Building for a Greener Future Together project), aircraft charter service Iskwew Air (Advanced Air Mobility Phase 1 project) and MUSKRAT Magazine (Spirit of Birth Indigenous Pregnancy and Parenting app).

“Our selection process was community defined, co-designed and led throughout,” Wolfe notes. “This is what it means to be a program that is by and for Indigenous peoples.”

In line with the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, the Initiative’s gender equality program seeks to “advance Indigenous gender equality across health, economic and social dimensions through transformative innovation and systemic change by and/or for First Nation, Inuit and Metis women, Two Spirit, queer and gender-diverse individuals.”

While programs exist to promote the inclusion and leadership of Indigenous communities in the business, technology and innovation sectors, the Indigenous Innovation Initiative is currently the only dedicated funder of Indigenous innovation in Canada. The initiative is intentionally employing Indigenous models of governance and leadership in its approach.

Wolfe says Indigenous innovation is about more than creating something new. “[It also] involves looking back to our traditional ways and re-conceptualizing them within a modern context,” she said.

While the Initiative works in collaboration with government and other not-for-profit organizations, Wolfe said funding distribution will be community-led. The Initiative works with the Indigenous Innovation Council of Indigenous leaders — made up of Elders and Knowledge Keepers from Indigenous communities across Canada — to create their innovation infrastructure platform.

Wolfe says Indigenous innovators often lack the financing and other resources necessary to launch businesses, so the initiative looks to use funding as a way of redistributing resources back to Indigenous communities.

“Investments to seed and scale Indigenous innovation are essential in order to address the systemic and discriminatory barriers faced by Indigenous entrepreneurs,” she said, adding that gaining access to these resources helps Indigenous communities “[begin] to build sustainable intergenerational wealth for our communities.”

The following projects are receiving funding through the initiative:

• Cheakamus Foundation for Environmental Learning (Squamish Territory, British Columbia)

  • Project: Building for a Greener Future Together

• Cheekbone Beauty Cosmetics (St. Catharines, Ontario)

  • Project: Indigenous Sustainable Packaging Solutions from the Natural World

• Clan Mothers Healing Village (Winnipeg, Manitoba)

  • Project: Clan Mothers Healing Village and Knowledge Centre Social Enterprise

• Hiit’aGan.iina Kuuyas Naay/Skidegate Youth Centre and Innonative (Skidegate, Haida Gwaii, British Columbia)

  • Project: Haida Gwaii Media Collective

• Iskwew Air (Musqueam Territory, British Columbia)

  • Project: Advanced Air Mobility Phase 1

• MUSKRAT Magazine (Wasauksing First Nation, Ontario)

  • Project: Spirit of Birth Indigenous pregnancy and parenting app

• Sus Loo Ltd. (Victoria, British Columbia)

  • Project: The Sage Initiative, to build a new generation of social impact investors

• Kim Wheatley and Amber Sandy (Shawanaga and Dokis First Nations, Ontario)

  • Project: Reclaiming Ancestral Harvesting Practices

• Yukon Soaps Company (Mayo, Yukon)

  • Project: Dan K’ehte Natsedan (Learning Our People’s Way)

• Anonymous innovator

  • Project: Development of a one-year seed education course to provide skills and teachings on each step of the seed-to-seed cycle.

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