Thank you for joining us on Wednesday, Oct 23rd, 2024 from 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm (PDT), for “Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls.” In this Indigenous Speakers Series session, we hade a conversation with Angela Sterritt, an award-winning investigative journalist, TV, radio, and podcast host, and national bestselling author for her book Unbroken. Angela is from the Wilp Wiik’aax (we-GAK) of the Gitanmaax (GIT-in-max) community within the Gitxsan (GICK-san) Nation on her dad’s side and from Bell Island, Newfoundland on her maternal side. In this conversation, we learnt more about the missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls within the context of truth, reconciliation and redress.
Speaker Bio
Angela Sterritt,
Journalist, Author, & Motivational Speaker.
Unbroken was nominated for the prestigious 2023 Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust Award
Angela Sterritt is an award-winning investigative journalist, TV, radio, and podcast host, and national bestselling author. She is from the Wilp Wiik’aax (we-GAK) of the Gitanmaax (GIT-in-max) community within the Gitxsan (GICK-san) Nation on her dad’s side and from Bell Island, Newfoundland on her maternal side. Sterritt worked as a television, radio, and digital journalist at CBC for more than a decade. She also hosted the award-winning CBC original podcast Land Back.
Her book Unbroken, published by Greystone Books, is part memoir and part investigation into the murders and disappearances of Indigenous women and girls. It became an instant national bestseller in May 2023. Unbroken was nominated for the Governor General’s Literary Awards, one of Canada’s oldest and most prestigious literary prizes. It was also nominated for the prestigious Hilary Weston Writer’s Trust award for best non-fiction book in Canada.
In 2024, Sterritt announced her second book, BREAKABLE, which will investigate how racism and colonialism cultivate harmful behaviors in men and how Indigenous men and communities are breaking cycles of unhealthy notions of masculinity. Greystone Books will publish Breakable in the spring of 2026.
In 2021, Sterritt won an Academy Award (Canadian Screen Award) for Best Reporter of the Year in Canada for her coverage of an Indigenous man and his then 12-year-old granddaughter who were arrested while trying to open a bank account at BMO. Sterritt also won a national Radio Television Digital News Association award for the same reporting. In 2020, Sterritt was named in Vancouver Magazine’s Power 50 list of the city’s 50 most influential people.
In 2020, the Canadian Screen Awards nominated her for best local reporter for her reporting on Indigenous babies apprehended by the Ministry of Children and Family Development. In 2019, Sterritt’s documentary on the complexity of Indigenous support for and challenges against the TransMountain Pipeline expansion project won an RTDNA award for best long feature.
As a motivational speaker, Sterritt talks about overcoming adversity, breaking stereotypes, and creating change and relationships in Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities, such as her Ted Talk about smashing stereotypes of Indigenous people.
In 2017, Sterritt accepted the Investigative Award of the Year from Canadian Journalists for Free Expression for coverage of missing and murdered Indigenous women. She was awarded a prestigious William Southam Journalism Fellowship at Massey College in Toronto and was the first known First Nations person in Canada ever to receive the award in the school’s 60-year history. She has taught as an instructor at the University of British Columbia, Western University, Simon Fraser University, and Thompson Rivers University.
Moderator
Derek K Thompson – Čaabať Bookwilla | Suhiltun, Director, Indigenous Engagement
Description
Written by Derek K Thompson – Čaabať Bookwilla | Suhiltun
Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls is the groundbreaking publication by award-winning journalist and author – Angela Sterritt.
Before the book starts there’s a solemn memorial to honor Indigenous and non-Indigenous women and girls who were murdered or went missing in British Columbia along the Highway of Tears—the stretch of Highway 16 between Prince George and Prince Rupert—and along the adjoining Highway 97 or 5. It also includes women who went missing in Greater Vancouver or whose DNA was discovered on the property of serial killer, Robert Pickton. The memorial begins with Rose Roper of Secwepemc and Tŝilhqot’in lineage, a young girl of only 17 years who went missing in 1967, and who was ultimately found to be murdered. The list ends in 2004 with Sharon Abraham from Sagkeeng First Nation in Manitoba, whose DNA was discovered on the Pickton farm. The list continues to multiply.
Unbroken is a sobering and unflinching narrative that highlights an urgency for all of us to begin to come to terms with each other. As the author suggests, “to understand their stories—of those who have suffered and for those who cannot share—[we] have to begin at a time that has been erased or warped by the colonials, a time when Indigenous women were revered as the backbone of our communities.”
Unbroken is also an inspiring and hopeful book filled with stories of resiliency and confidence, and “That we can have the space and time to use our imagination, be curious, and wonder what it’s like to live the way our ancestors did, with an abundance of love for each other, our children, and future generations.”
Please join me for a meaningful and profound conversation with journalist, author and motivational speaker Angela Sterritt. This important dialogue will underscore the context and urgency to really get at the processes we know as reconciliation and redress between Indigenous peoples and Canadians, and to get to work on the telling of many truths and to have those truths legitimized with sincerity and action.
Topic: Unbroken: My Fight for Survival, Hope, and Justice for Indigenous Women and Girls
Date: Wednesday, Oct 23rd, 2024
Time: 12:00 – 1:30 pm (PDT)
What Will I Learn?
You will learn about the context of missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls within the context of truth, reconciliation and redress.
Continue Learning
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