Episode 39: Autumn Peltier - The Water Walker

Ahkameyimok Podcast with Perry Bellegarde

"If you see the message coming from someone who is from my age or younger, that's when you know you are doing something wrong and something has to be done. Because the youth shouldn't have to be using their voices, we shouldn't have to be speaking up on political issues."

In 2019, fourteen year-old Autumn Peltier addressed the United Nations in New York on the growing water crisis on our planet and facing First Nations peoples. Her journey there began at the age of eight, mentored by her great-aunt and Anishinaabe clean water advocate, the late Josephine Mandamin. Since then, Peltier has addressed international leaders at the World Economic Forum, and Canadian leaders on Parliament Hill, as well as speaking out at grass roots events across the country. With 57 First Nations communities currently living under long-term boil water advisories, clearly more work still needs to be done. And access to safe, clean water is more important than ever as the ongoing impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic highlight the uncertainty facing First Nations.

Peltier's story is told in the new documentary, "The Water Walker," which premiered last fall at the Toronto International Film Festival.

https://seeingred6nations.com/projects/

Peltier joins the Ahkameyimok Podcast as the 4th Annual Assembly of First Nations Water Symposium takes place Feb 17-18th

https://www.afn.ca/2021-water-symposium/

A big thanks goes out to the Red Dog Singers of Treaty 4 Territory in Saskatchewan for our theme song, Intertribal.

The Ahkameyimok Podcast is produced by David McGuffin of Explore Podcast Productions.