Our Commitment to Justice
“Peace cannot be achieved without justice;
justice cannot be achieved without equity;
equity cannot be achieved without reconciliation.”
- Nathan Kuan Glenn Uhlmeyer
Our Commitment
Nature connection is a birth rite and a way of being and belonging that all of Life benefited from until relatively recently in the story of our human family. We believe that all humans deserve to experience health and wholeness that arises from a nature-rooted life nested within kincentric* cultures.
While VWP seeks to (re)connect our human and non-human kin, we acknowledge that the very concept of nature (re)connection exists as a direct result of centuries of enforced separation between humans and our more-than-human world. This violence has fallen largely on Bodies of Culture** and continues to this day.
Thus, as a historically white-led organization, we work to mobilize our privilege to help transform systems that perpetuate this harm towards Bodies of Culture and exclude Black, Brown, Indigenous and marginalized people from access to nature (re)connection.
We do this through our work to perceive, account for and dismantle systemic racism and the effects of oppression which exist within all facets of our organization - within our bodies, minds and hearts, in our policies and practices, and in our wider VWP community and beyond. Through ecological, social, cultural, and personal pathways, we are continuously aligning with the energies of collective liberation, to nurture and awaken the lineage that dwells in us all, that weaves all beings inside our Earthly community.
Our Lineage
VWP’s approach to deep nature (re)connection mentoring and programming has roots in culturally appropriated knowledge and is informed by a complex web of Indigenous and non-Indigenous teachers and elders. We are grateful for the instruction, encouragement and permission we have received. At the same time, we are actively working to repair the harm in our work (see below).
We recognize our responsibility to mentor the next generation in ways that honor all Indigenous and and other Bodies of Culture whose ancestral nature connections were/are systematically oppressed. We acknowledge with particular respect the many Coast Salish tribes of the original peoples of this island in the Salish Sea, including the sx̌ʷəbabs, and all the many indigenous peoples who call Vashon Island home. We align with all who persist in sustaining a culture deeply committed to caring for each other and the Earth; they guide us in these times that call for action and change.
Our Work
As we engage our hearts in this work, VWP is committed to honesty and transparency. We will learn and grow in our work towards justice and equity as VWP continues to acknowledge, change and repair harmful practices.
Our Equity Council (EC) was created in Spring 2020 to center our ongoing justice work and ensure we are a welcoming, equitable organization on every level - one which honors the best of our lineage, invites a brave space for learning and education and where we co-create a more just place for all beings.
The EC is composed of many individuals across all leadership circles in our organization, representing: parents, mentors, directors, board members and elders. Our efforts are ongoing and recognize that deep change happens through commitment and practice.
Here’s a sample of our organization’s efforts over the recent years. We will continually update this so please check back on our progress.
Organizational Culture
Transitioned to a shared leadership structure to empower all levels of our organization’s human resources and are actively eliminating from our VWP culture and community ways in which we’ve embodied the dominant culture’s systems of oppression.
Actively decolonizing in order to center and empower the most marginalized amongst us and who are not yet with us.
Created the Radical Welcoming Committee to create processes, systems and policies that ensure our organization/community is safe, aware, alert, equitable, empowering, responsive, adaptive, restorative, decolonizing, mutual, and respectful.
Established a Restorative Justice protocol for addressing harm in our organization.
Mentors are actively invited to engage in their own decolonizing work, to heal and tend to their own ancestral trauma and locate themselves within oppressive paradigms we all find ourselves within in order to show up more fully for the families that we serve.
Programming
Offering land acknowledgement and calls for acts of solidarity, condolences and gratitude at the beginning of every program, meeting and gathering.
Incorporate teachings about the history of the land, cultural histories, and Indigenous-Settler relations into our programming in age-appropriate ways.
Ongoing composting of our 8 Shields mentoring legacy by continually reviewing and evaluating all skills, stories, and songs with an eye toward eliminating cultural appropriation and/or misappropriation
Sharing with the children in our programs the name whose land we are residing in and the lineage of the stories, songs, and lifeways that we are working with.
Honoring our teachers by sharing teachings with permission, respect and attribution.
Creating invitation and space for youth in our programs to choose to share their pronouns, ancestry, and culture in celebration and love of our wild diversity.
Addressing Barriers to Participation
Securing grants and dedicating fiscal resources to fund a partnership programs with our local elementary school to provide nature-based activities to all 480 students in grades K-5.
Currently transforming our enrollment policies to actively realign our economic priorities with our commitment to justice. We aim to transform the landscape of our nature connection programs by honoring the history of Indigenous peoples and prioritizing those traditionally excluded from nature connection and/or furthest from economic justice. To date, we have:
Maintained a robust Equitable Access Fund to reduce financial barriers to participation.
Established the Salish Sea Fund to enable Indigenous families to choose to attend our programs for free.
Begun to redesign our fee-for-service program enrollment process to empower families to choose their level of financial commitment with the full knowledge and responsibility of their privilege and positionality, thereby contributing to a regenerative community.
Professional Development
Staff receive training on topics such as decolonization, equity and diversity, anti-racism, neurodiversity, gender, mental health and Traditional Ecological Knowledge.
Participate in ongoing education and learning in anti-racist and decolonization work within ourselves and with our community here and across the country through our membership and participation in the international Nature Connection Network.
Hiring Practices
Created the Restorative Practices Committee to create clear, articulated values, commitments and protocols in our hiring and orientation of new employees and all aspects of our organization.
Revised job descriptions, updated our diversity statement, expanded posting to job boards targeted to BIPOC.
SALISH SEA FUND
Beginning Fall 2023, Indigenous children will have the option to attend our programs for free.
Thanks to a generous donor, we have been gifted with seed money to establish the new “Salish Sea Fund”, and have committed to matching this gift, for a total of $10,000 this first year, and have surpassed our goal with over $16,000 in funds distributed.
We’ll welcome families from any Indigenous tribe whose ancestors or living kin are woven with the land and waters of the Salish Sea, as well as any Indigenous family who calls Vashon-Maury Island home. This is one small step in our ongoing story to heal the harm in our work and to walk in right relations.
We invite you to join us. Donate today.
Our Teachers
For a list of our teachers, please click HERE.
“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I'll meet you there….” (Rumi)