North Central Saskatchewan:

Priscilla Settee

Priscilla Settee has been associated provincially, nationally and internationally with several organizations including the Indigenous Women's Network, the Indigenous Environmental Network, the Joe Duquette Aboriginal High School, and the Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific. An educator, intellectual, activist and writer, she has been a trailblazer in developing global solidarity within and between aboriginal communities and non aboriginal communities. Priscilla’s solidarity work has spanned continents from Africa, to Latin America to the South Pacific, and she has also worked at home in Saskatchewan confronting systemic racism and building bridges of solidarity between all communities. Priscilla has done her solidarity work with courage, foresight and integrity.

By travelling to indigenous communities in Central and South America in the late 1970s Priscilla built an awareness of people fighting for liberation and self reliance that she has carried through all the subsequent years.

Priscilla put many years into the Indigenous Women’s Network of Saskatchewan both as President and voluntary organizer. She helped develop international solidarity links between indigenous women internationally, and links with the labour movement and social movement in Saskatchewan. She is a board member of Indigenous Women’s Network of North America and has been editor of the Indigenous Women Magazine.

Priscilla was a tireless anti apartheid fighter active in the anti apartheid movement in Canada. After the collapse of the apartheid regime she was invited to be an observer at the first democratic elections. Priscilla has had a continuing relationship with South Africa advising on the rights of indigenous communities. She also was a delegate to the UN Social Forum Against Racism held in South Africa.

Over the years, Priscilla has been very active in the South Pacific Peoples Forum defending the land rights and environment of the South Pacific. She has organized key exchanges between indigenous communities of the South Pacific and Canada.

On the Prairies and nationally, she provides major leadership in indigenous rights, anti racism, anti nuclear and environmental, aboriginal education, and indigenous language development.

Priscilla’s work in Intellectual Property Rights, Indigenous Rights and understanding and documenting Indigenous knowledge systems globally has been groundbreaking. She is enrolled in an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program in Agriculture and Education. Her research compares Indigenous Knowledge systems in Southern Africa, Vanuatu, and Saskatchewan and looks at the threats to those systems including the many aspects of imperialism.

Priscilla has seen herself very much as a mentor to young people – helping them to connect locally and internationally with their history and their common struggles. In one of her many activities as a youth mentor she organized a learning exchange between young people in Hawaii, Fiji, the Philippines and Canada. She constantly practices the mutuality of learning.

Priscilla has been all of this and much more. She has combined social activism and advocacy; intellectual analysis, rigorous research and practice; a teacher, mentor and innovator into intentional citizenry both locally and globally. She richly deserves to be acknowledged as a Global Citizen.

Priscilla is a member of the Intercessional working group on Article 8 (J) of the Convention on Biological Diversity and serves as an expert panelist in many fora on issues such as Indigenous sovereignty, benefits sharing and sustainable development, indigenous science, technology, biodiversity, and building sustainable communities.