Centre for Community Engagement and Social Change Year End Report 2024-2025
Queen’s University is situated on the territory of the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek.
Ne Queen’s University e’tho nón:we nikanónhsote tsi nón:we ne Haudenosaunee táhnon Anishinaabek tehatihsnonhsáhere ne onhwéntsya.
Gimaakwe Gchi-gkinoomaagegamig atemagad Naadowe miinwaa Anishinaabek aking.
CCESC would like to acknowledge and pay our respects to the Haudenosaunee and Anishinaabek peoples, who were the original and continue to be present-day inhabitants and stewards of the land where Queen’s University is located, and where we are privileged to work, learn, and play. We also acknowledge and pay our respects to the many diverse Indigenous peoples who have lived and continue to live on these lands. We are grateful for and humbled by their many ongoing vital contributions, including to research, education, and knowledge. As a research centre focused on community engagement and social change, the CCESC is deeply committed to building reciprocal, sustained, and respectful relationships with communities, particularly with Indigenous collaborators and nations on whose land we work and live.
As uninvited guests on this territory, we recognize that our efforts toward inclusion, justice, and belonging must begin with an honest reckoning of the histories and ongoing realities of settler colonialism, the ongoing implication of Western education systems and research, and an active commitment to decolonizing and Indigenizing education and research. We are committed to the Calls to Action by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and acknowledge education has fallen short of meeting them. We actively strive to collaborate, learn, and unlearn alongside Indigenous partners locally, nationally, and globally and to ground our approach in respect, relationality, and accountability to ensure that our work contributes to futures in which all students, families, and communities belong and flourish.