Food Security and Food Sovereignty: An Urban NDN POV

When I think of these terms, I think about how these terms empower me.... throughout my life I have been seeking dialogue on these subjects, yet trying to get urban Native people interested in talking about this, not just doing this work, has not been easy. I don't think it is cuz they don't want to share, I think the general feeling is that nothing will get done if we don't just do the work involved in the gathering, the hunting, the processing...

When is there time to actually strategize on these topics, and make things happen?

I know that feeling, cuz when I get going on my food security for my personal living, there is really no time to talk, just do. I see what it takes for me personally to get this together for myself and my family, but I have a number of resources, including the fact that I live here in Vancouver, where my territories are... being Coast Salish, I have a number of directions I can go to gather what is natural to my DNA.

A lot of my friends who come from many directions have to work harder to get their traditional foods and medicines. This always concerns me.

I am happy that I have a job that helps the community to strategize ways of solving these issues. I wish more Indigenous people could do this work, because I think there would be more of a presence of our foods and medicines in the landscape if that were the case. There is a need for someone to be in a pivotal position that brings people together to look at these matters, and talk about ways of bringing us all together, just as I feel that there is a need for more Indigenous people working in this field so we have more of our foods growing in community gardens.

I want to work on ways we can create an Urban NDN Marketplace. This would be a place where traditional foods and medicines, and crafts and arts and other elements of what we all do as Indigenous peoples living in urban environments can trade and share, and sell and buy things we need and want to make our lives more normal as NDN's. This is something that I feel that many Indigenous people think about daily. This is a topic that we see as a path from Food Security to Food Sovereignty.

Autonomous work and living, is what many of us strive for, self-sufficiency and sustainability... I think of these terms when I think of Food Security and Food Sovereignty, I feel that they go hand in hand.