Welcome to Inspiring Indigenous Youth

“No matter how hopeless life can feel, there is always a way forward” (“About.”) That’s the message We Matter Campaign co-founders Kelvin and Tunachai Redvers (Deniniu K’ue First Nation) want to get across to Indigenous youth through their remarkable suicide-prevention project.

What are some of those “ways forward” for Indigenous young people? How are Indigenous children, teens, and young adults overcoming the odds? How are they resisting the 500 years of genocidal policies responsible for those odds? How are they drawing on their cultures for strength? How are they creating life-giving ways forward for others?

Who are the inspiring Indigenous young people of our time? This website introduces you to some of them. There are, of course, many many more. But, if you are looking for a place to start learning, a place where you will be introduced to Indigenous leaders who are under 30 years old (some well under 30) and already making a positive difference in the world, then you’ve come to the right place.

This website is a collaborative project of students in Dr. Mandy Suhr-Sytsma’s Writing about Literature: Native Youth Speaking Out course at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia (Muscogee Creek Territory). The site was launched by students in the fall 2018 iteration of the course, and it will be added to by other students who will take the course in years to come. Please contact Dr. Suhr-Sytsma with feedback or suggestions. Thank you, and enjoy the site.

Works Cited

“About.” We Matter Campaign. We Matter, 2018. wemattercampaign.org/about. Accessed 17 Sept 2018.