Deusdedit Ruhangariyo
ICT
Around the world: Indigenous leaders alarmed by vanishing reconciliation funds in Canada; Lamu communities in Kenya win landmark battle against coal plant; Māori urge reform of failing suicide prevention system; and Djarindjin proves Indigenous self-determination is the future.
Canada: Vanishing reconciliation funds raise alarms
Indigenous leaders across Canada are sounding alarms after the new federal budget failed to guarantee funding for crucial reconciliation programs beyond spring 2026, triggering fears of looming cuts, CBC reported on Nov. 5.
A chart from Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first budget revealed that while certain Indigenous services received one-year top-ups — covering education, child wellness, emergency management, and urban programs — subsequent years displayed “zero after zero after zero.”
Assembly of First Nations National Chief Cindy Woodhouse Nepinak expressed concern: “I am going to ask the Prime Minister’s Office today: ‘What is exactly being cut?’” She called the programs “sunset initiatives” whose termination would betray over 600 First Nations communities. Inuit leader Natan Obed shared similar anxieties, warning that the Inuit Child First Initiative — ensuring equal access to essential services — is set to expire in March without renewal. “We’ve tried to resolve this outside of the courts,” he said, “but we’ll fight for our children if needed.”
Indigenous Services Minister Mandy Gull-Masty attempted reassurance, claiming the government aimed to “modernize” delivery rather than cancel programs. Yet Friendship Centres nationwide issued warnings: “These critical services are at risk.” Sean Longboat of Ontario’s federation accused Ottawa of “breaking its promise to Indigenous people.”
Some optimism came from the Manitoba Métis Federation, which said the budget “aligns with our priorities” and allows projects to proceed quickly. But others remained wary. Even with a 2 percent cap on spending cuts at Indigenous departments — amounting to about $500 million per year — advocates warned that reduced support could undo years of progress.
Obed cautiously welcomed new Arctic infrastructure funding but lamented the absence of commitments to tuberculosis elimination and child equity. “Those are rights-based initiatives,” he said, “and this budget doesn’t reflect the depth of commitment we’ve been promised.”
For Indigenous leaders, reconciliation appears once again postponed — transformed from a sacred national promise into another bureaucratic delay.
Kenya: A landmark win against coal plant
Kenya’s Environment and Land Court has upheld a landmark ruling that permanently revoked the environmental license for the proposed 1,050-megawatt Lamu coal-fired power plant. Justice Francis Njoroge dismissed Amu Power Company’s appeal, finding that its Environmental and Social Impact Assessment was inadequate and public participation gravely deficient.
The judgment ends nearly a decade of community resistance led by Save Lamu and deCOALonize, which fought to protect the island’s fragile mangroves, coral reefs, and seagrass beds. The 2019 National Environmental Tribunal had voided Amu Power’s license, famously declaring that “public participation is the oxygen that gives life to an ESIA report.”
According to Mongabay, Omar Elmawi of deCOALonize celebrated the verdict: “The people of Lamu stood firm against a coal giant. This victory is a powerful reminder that when communities speak with one voice, they can move mountains.”
Elizabeth Kariuki from Natural Justice called it “a triumph for environmental justice,” emphasizing that development must never come at the expense of people’s health or culture.
The ruling reinforces a wider regional shift: since 2019, the African Development Bank has pledged to stop funding coal entirely. To revive the project, Amu Power would need a brand-new assessment addressing cumulative ecological and social impacts, robust mitigation plans, and genuine public inclusion — especially for Lamu’s fishing communities.
For now, the decision freezes the project indefinitely. It stands as both legal and moral precedent, proving that Kenya’s constitution protects not just land but the soul of its people.
NEW ZEALAND: Māori urge reform of failing suicide prevention system
Despite national declines in suicide rates, Māori deaths remain tragically unchanged after 16 years, prompting renewed calls for culturally grounded prevention. Data from the Coroner’s Court and Health New Zealand revealed 630 suspected suicides from July 2024 to June 2025 — a quarter Māori, Te Ao Maori News reported on Nov. 8.
Tama, a young Māori man whose real name was withheld, shared a harrowing personal journey through the mental health system. He described his experience as “slow, unprofessional and judgemental.” He recalled being numbed by prescriptions: “They take the person out of you. All it did was give me another issue.” Family intervention helped him reclaim his life.
Māori men age 24-44 remain the most affected group — 28 deaths per 100,000, double the rate for non-Māori males. Tiana Watkins of Life Keepers linked the crisis to colonial trauma and systemic inequity, calling for “By Māori, for Māori, with Māori” leadership. “The answers already lie within our hapori,” she said. “Reconnecting to our whenua and reo is our healing.”
Health Minister Matt Doocey recently announced a NZ $61.1 million Suicide Prevention Action Plan including a Māori Community Fund and training to help locals recognize distress. Yet critics say the system remains ill-equipped for Indigenous realities.
Today, Tama walks daily in nature and urges others: “Get out of that bubble. Go for a walk. Talk to someone.” His voice captures both grief and hope — a generation’s call for systems that heal through belonging, not prescription.
AUSTRALIA: ‘Star learning from us’
At the AEMEE Conference in Darwin, Nathan McIvor of Djarindjin Aboriginal Corporation issued a challenge: “Stop trying to fix us. Start learning from us.” The community on Bardi and Jawi Country has transformed itself through a 20-year plan anchored in cultural governance and economic sovereignty, National Indigenous Times reported on Nov. 7.
“We’re not just building a successful community,” McIvor said, “we’re demonstrating what true self-determination looks like in practice.” Rejecting the “Closing the Gap” framework as a colonial yardstick, he argued that the real gap lies in Australia’s understanding of Indigenous capacity.
Since founding their community in 1984 after leaving the Catholic Mission, Djarindjin has achieved economic independence. Airport revenues rose from $2.9 million to nearly $20 million in 2024; employment grew from 30 to 157 people. The airport won the 2024 Small Regional Airport of the Year.
“We paid off a $4.5 million loan and took over full management,” McIvor said. “We even built our own software for helicopter turnarounds.” Djarindjin now earns 90 percent of its revenue independently.
Projects like the Aalaga Goorlii Sun Turtle Power initiative and GornGornMa housing model link renewable energy to home ownership and wellbeing. “We’re not just running businesses; we’re building an ecosystem of self-determination,” he said.
Their governance is guided by ancestral wisdom: “Our cultural north star never shifts with politics.” Language revival, adult Bardi classes, and inter-community knowledge sharing underscore that spiritual and economic sovereignty can coexist. McIvor’s closing remark resounded nationwide: “The Djarindjin model proves we can be partners for Australia to learn from.”
My last thoughts
From Canada’s budgetary shadows to Kenya’s courtroom victory and from New Zealand’s unhealed grief to Australia’s renaissance of self-determination, a single truth rises: Indigenous resilience is not a request for inclusion — it is a demonstration of capability.
Each story exposes a different face of the same wound. Canada’s reconciliation fatigue shows how governments still manage Indigenous futures as line items rather than living legacies. Programs called “sunset initiatives” reveal a colonial reflex that treats healing as temporary. In Kenya, by contrast, the people of Lamu proved that justice, when community-led, can rewrite national precedent. Their triumph against a coal empire was not merely environmental — it was epistemic. They defended not just reefs and mangroves but the moral right to define progress.
Across the Pacific, Māori voices in New Zealand echo a parallel truth: systems that medicate pain without listening perpetuate it. The young man’s cry — “They take the person out of you” — is an indictment of mental health models detached from land, language and lineage. His recovery through nature and kinship reveals what modern psychiatry often forgets: belonging is medicine.
And then Djarindjin enters like a vision of what could be. McIvor’s declaration — “Stop trying to fix us. Start learning from us” — turns the reconciliation paradigm upside down. The success of Djarindjin’s enterprises, guided by a 60,000-year moral compass, proves that prosperity and tradition can reinforce each other rather than collide.
Yet, the wider world still defaults to extraction — of resources, of ideas, even of hope. The challenge ahead is not only funding or reform; it is moral redesign. Governments must evolve from benevolent overseers to cooperative learners. Universities and investors must stop seeing Indigenous innovation as cultural ornamentation and start recognizing it as structural intelligence.
The way forward is clear: Treat Indigenous knowledge not as heritage but as infrastructure. Fund it as seriously as highways and data centers. Translate “consultation” into “co-design.” Replace the metrics of charity with those of continuity — whether a community can sustain identity, language, and dignity for the next century.
If reconciliation in Canada, restoration in Kenya, reform in New Zealand, and renewal in Australia can converge, the world may finally learn that self-determination is not rebellion — it is repair.
These stories do not ask for pity; they demand partnership. They remind policymakers, engineers, and moral architects alike that the future will not be built by those who manage the marginalized, but by those who trust them to lead.
In the end, the conscience of nations will not be measured by the monuments they build to apologize for history, but by the ecosystems they sustain to ensure it never repeats.