Our Commitment to Truth & Reconciliation

We are a remote and decentralized team that is grateful to live and work on the diverse and unceded traditional territories of numerous Indigenous Nations which coexist with a country now known as Canada.

The path to truth and reconciliation is a journey that requires ongoing work with a strong foundation of commitment, care and curiosity. With humility, we seek to learn, understand and discover new ways we can live and work together, striving for Indigenous justice, reparations and decolonization. While we know this will be an intergenerational process, we strive to accomplish much in this generation.

We recognize online spaces can be unsafe for Indigenous Peoples and access to digital services and information is not equitable. We aim to develop digital platforms, in partnership with and to be owned by Indigenous Nations, communities and organizations, where they can run their businesses, share histories, campaigns and resources, and engage online within and outside their communities.

We have been fortunate to work with many Indigenous clients over the years including BC First Nations Justice Council, Coastal First Nations, xʷməθkʷəy̓əm Musqueam Indian Band, Tsleil-Waututh Nation and West Moberly First Nation. We stand with them in their commitment to Indigenous rights, self determination, sovereignty and self-governance.

How we take action on truth and reconciliation

As an organization that has established social responsibility and justice as two of our core values, we are invested in ongoing learning and improvement. Here are some of the ways we have incorporated action in support of truth and reconciliation into our lives at Affinity Bridge: 

• We ensure all new employees are briefed on the important place that Truth and Reconciliation holds at Affinity Bridge, and this is also documented in our Employee Handbook.
• We engage Indigenous speakers to lead our team and continuously build our cultural competency through educational and culturally significant knowledge-sharing sessions and workshops.
• We host a monthly Equity, Diversity, Interdependence and Justice (EDIJ) meeting to hold space for important conversations, including reading the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action and identifying what we as an agency and as individuals can do to address them. We regularly discuss how we can combat white supremacy culture and other social issues.
• We encourage all employees to recognize the Indigenous lands upon which they live by researching their location on native-land.ca and modeling this practice with their community.      
   

With our commitment to learning, we are thankful for the friends, colleagues and community partners who educate and guide us. We are immensely grateful to Clayton Thomas-Müller for sharing his time and wisdom while working with us as an advisor.

Territory honouring

We are grateful to live and work on the traditional lands and waters of Indigenous Peoples, including First Nations, Inuit, and Métis Peoples, which co-exist with a country now known as Canada.

As our remote team is decentralized, we live and work on the traditional, ancestral and stolen territories of the numerous and diverse Indigenous Peoples that have inhabited and cared for this land since time immemorial.