Vanessa Mitchell is an Okanagan/Syilx Nation woman, daughter, sister, niece, aunt, and mother of two young adults. For the past 20 years, she has worked within urban and on-reserve Aboriginal organizations involving youth, elders, leadership, and grassroots’ initiatives. More recently, she carries two roles within Interior Health, Practice Lead supporting two of the seven Interior First Nations and as Program Manager of the Journey to Aboriginal Cultural Safety & Humility (JACSH) program. Vanessa is leading the work of Aboriginal Cultural Safety within Interior Health. In the five years that she has been with the Aboriginal Health program, Vanessa has been leading the advancement of the JACSH program and has built the team to include a Program Manager, Knowledge Facilitator, Educators and Administrative Support. This program strives to advance cultural safety and humility throughout the continuum of health services and its leadership. Vanessa holds from the University of British Columbia – Okanagan both a Master of Arts which is focused on cultural safety and a Bachelor of Arts majoring in Indigenous Studies.

Her roles align with her passion for advocacy and relationship and she describes what she does as “hard work and heart work”.

Jewelles A. Smith is a strong voice for human rights in Canada; she is a feminist disability activist, scholar, writer, and artist. She has received specific training in human rights monitoring, women’s human rights justice, and methods in using legislation, policy and human rights treaties to challenge inequality. Jewelles is a PhD student at UBCO. Her dissertation will document narratives of disabled mothers in Canada from a human rights perspective. Smith has published numerous articles on women, mothering, and disability in academic journals, mainstream magazines, and newspapers. She has presented at numerous conferences and events on these topics, and participated in countless radio interviews.

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Tattooing, traditional tattooing, Indigenous tattooing, personal narratives, art-based methods, intergenerational narratives, residential schools for disabled children, cultural safety, chaptikwl, Syilx, Indigenous epistemologies, new immigrants, Kelowna, health care services, mid-sized city, single mothers, housing, subsidy benchmarks, Nabit, orthography, alphabet design, Ghana, empowerment, Microcredit, ethnography, computer software analysis methods, cultural representations, Zapotec textiles, food and water security, Ktunaxa, Columbia River Treaty, agriculture, food sovereignty, global food security.