More Children in Muddy Boots, Outside!

Welcome to the Child & Nature Alliance of Canada

We foster meaningful connections with the outdoors for children and youth. All children and youth should have the opportunity to play and learn in forests, parks, meadows and mud puddles. We work to connect children and youth with nature through policy, research, and practice.

Relationship with the Land is at the heart of what we do, and this Land is Indigenous Land.

But the origins of the Child and Nature Alliance of Canada and Forest School Canada are rooted in white settler thinking and approaches. We are an organization currently led by white settlers, headquartered on the unceded traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinaabe. We have imposed a settler colonial way of being with the Land because our programs were not co-created with Indigenous people. This approach means we perpetuate and benefit from colonization in the ways that we operate, and this causes harm.

We want to repair our relationships with the Indigenous communities and people we have harmed, and, if they are willing, work towards co-creating trusting, safe, and reciprocal relationships with them. From that place of reciprocity, we hope to recreate the Forest and Nature School Practitioners Course, and co-create all future programming with Indigenous partners across Canada. In doing that, we hope that Indigenous and Western worldviews will have equitable voice and space in our programs, so that they are safe, meaningful, and culturally relevant for all participants.

Have questions, concerns, or ideas? Please let us know at hlwilson@childnature.ca!

*The creation of this statement was guided by the Touchstones of Hope framework