land acknowledgement

Centre Kapwa wishes to acknowledge that we live, work, and play on unceded Indigenous lands of the traditional territory of both the Kanien’kehá:ka and Anishinabeg peoples. We support community efforts to encourage a relationship with Indigenous peoples based on trust, cooperation, empathy and respect, in the process of forging truth and reconciliation.

As Filipino/a/x who are in our journey of decolonization, it is important to extend our solidarity with Indigenous people because the violence of colonialism is not lost upon us. As survivors of colonial violence and uninvited immigrants, we recognize the importance of acknowledging the guardians of the Lands and Waters that have been sustaining us.

Land Acknowledgements are our Mano Po to the original peoples, to their elders and to their ancestors.

We acknowledge that the Canadian nation-state is built on the dispossession and genocide of Indigenous peoples, and through the erasure of its history of the enslavement of African peoples. We acknowledge and pay tribute to those who were brought to these lands as a result of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery. We are committed to confronting Anti-Black and Anti-Indigenous racism and to supporting Indigenous-led and Black-led movements for social justice and systemic change.

To “consecrate” means to declare that something is Sacred. The Centre Kapwa team is humbled and honoured to make this divine dedication to our work through the talented and touching words of our dear Deann Louise C. Nardo of Ka Collective.

(Please respect this poet and artist's work by not reproducing or sharing on social media) 

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space for possibility, recovery, and process and devote ourselves in this circle as a space to embrace the process of becoming.

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space to embody wholeness while leaving grace for transformation, recontextualization, and nuance.

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space to practice consent and honour boundaries, understanding that self-autonomy is a co-operative practice of freedom.

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space to recognize a striving towards balance, in our own lives and our community, from our inner depths, radiating outwards to the abundant universe.

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space to recognize that practicing strengthening links, within ourselves and each other is a defiant act, that shame dissolves in the ears of Kapwa and love links us in our responsibilities to ourselves and each other. Kapwa strengthens links through accountability, compassion, and love. We embrace that care is a deliberate act that binds community.

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space to show gratitude by extending an offering as an act of reciprocation and honour our connections in a good way towards collective liberation.

We hold and co-create this sacred space

A space to re-member our ancestors, their hands on our shoulders and their ancestors hands on their shoulders, onwards ascending, and remember that we are held by a web of love and care extending generations, unbridled by space and linear time.

Let our voices be heard and allow ourselves to be seen as we are, in our wildness, and in our unlimited capacity for expansiveness and ever blossoming abundance.

Through our web of care extending the hands and strands of our ancestors’ interwoven histories, we are in harmonious vibration with the universal currents of Wisdom, Power and Joy. The Presence of Divine Wisdom is manifested here. The Presence of Power is shared here. The Presence of Divine Joy is deeply felt by all those who enter here. 

We consecrate this space to the perfect expression of all divine qualities which are in us and in all beings. We align our vibrations to the forces of all creation, shared and coalescing as we open this space as a center for possibility and grace.