An author from Cumberland House First Nation has been awarded the NDN Collective Changemaker Fellowship.
Priscilla Settee, a professor of Indigenous Studies at the University of Saskatchewan, is among 21 Indigenous leaders across Turtle Island – which includes the United States, Canada and Mexico – to receive the fellowship.
According to the collective’s website, the fellowship is given to Indigenous people who “challenge the status quo” and are actively working to build a better future for the world while decolonizing it.
Settee said she’s happy to work with the organization because of their push to uplift Indigenous voices.
“(I wanted) to work with social movements that are making a difference in the world,” she said. “There are a lot of movements — social, political — but this one appealed to me because of its focus on decolonization and development.”
Settee explained this development needs to be sustainable and benefit everyone, including Indigenous people.
She is the recipient of $75,000 U.S. as a result of the fellowship.
Settee said she’ll be using some of the funding to finish work on two books.
“One of (the books) is a sequel to the book that we just produced in 2020 called Indigenous Food Systems. The second one we are just organizing now, and this book will focus on international food security (and) food sovereignty issues.”
The U of S professor plans to also use a portion of the money to continue writing her memoirs.
She’s hoping by publishing her own personal story, other Indigenous people will be able to relate and it will also give Settee the chance to showcase the light that she’s found after struggling during her childhood.
“Our original trapping family was dismantled by the state, and all of my siblings are now deceased in part because of how we were placed in abusive foster homes,” she said “This is a story that needs to be told, but there also has to be the ‘upside of down’ and, as a strong Indigenous woman, I think I represent that. I’ve gone from being a kid on welfare, from an abusive foster home, into a world of academia and publications.”
The NDN collective is an Indigenous-led organization based in the United States.
(PHOTO: Priscilla Settee. Photo courtesy David Stobbe, University of Saskatchewan.)