FNMI Workshops Charity has turned 10 separate life-skills workshops into one full-day, live theatrical event. With a team of professional athletes, Indigenous performers, and certified social workers, we take students through the story of Barry — a young Indigenous man who experiences bullying, abuse, addiction, and loss — pausing at key moments for open discussion, not just a performance.
These are the 16 stops that make up your full-day event. For the hour-by-hour schedule and entrance-fee details, see the Program Overview. Below, each module opens up with the full story of what happens there — who leads it, what students walk away with, and how it fits into the day.
Program Modules
Before the doors open to students, our facilitators sit down with local Elders, school directors, and community success leaders for a pre-show discussion.
The goal is simple: identify the specific, recurring challenges your community is facing — whether that’s bullying, substance use, or something else — so the day’s performance and discussions speak directly to your students rather than a generic script.
This conversation also gives Elders and leaders a chance to shape how their community’s history and culture are represented in the Historical Timeline segment that follows.
Delivered by Knowledge Keeper Elder Sheldon FirstRider in both English and traditional language, set against a 30-foot projection-mapped screen that surrounds the venue with image and sound.
- 1493 — The Doctrine of Discovery, used to justify the seizure of Indigenous land
- 1670 — The Hudson’s Bay Company is granted control over Rupert’s Land, roughly 40% of modern Canada
- 1763–1812 — The Royal Proclamation, Pontiac’s War, and the War of 1812
- 1867 — The British North America Act gives Parliament authority over “Indians and lands”
- 1869 — Métis Land Rights Resistance, and the founding of the NWMP (now the RCMP) in 1873
- 1876 — The Indian Act and forced assimilation policy
- 1874–1996 — The residential school system, and the abuse and loss of life within it
- 1950s–60s — The Sixties Scoop, and the 1969 White Paper’s push to eliminate First Nations legal status
- 1982 — The Constitution Act recognizes existing Aboriginal and treaty rights
- 1997–2012 — Delgamuukw v. British Columbia recognizes oral history as evidence; R. v. Gladue and R. v. Ipeelee address Indigenous over-incarceration
- 2015 — The Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s 94 Calls to Action
- MMIWG — Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, and the ongoing crisis behind it
The segment closes on a forward note: an expecting mother wearing a Wombs of Wisdom learning belt appears on screen as Harold, our humanoid robot, walks on stage — connecting this history to how we’re passing knowledge to the next generation today.
workers — including former WWE wrestler Tatanka and home-grown performer Wavell Starr.
The story follows Barry, a young Indigenous man who experiences bullying, abandonment, addiction, and depression. Every time the performance depicts something harmful, the actors stop, step out of character, and lead the audience in an open discussion about what just happened and how to respond — as the victim, or as a bystander.
The goal is to give students concrete tools: how to speak up for themselves in the moment, and how to intervene safely when they witness someone else being hurt.
This station introduces expecting families to the Mother-in-Law Learning Belt and explains how prenatal nutrition and audio learning work together.
It’s also where Harold the humanoid robot demonstrates the concept live — reaching out to “connect” with an expecting mother on screen to show how an Elder’s knowledge, culture, and language can be carried to a child before birth.
For the full program details — nutrition guidance, how the audio belt works, and what happens after the baby is born — see the dedicated Wombs of Wisdom page.
Held at noon and 6 PM, each meal comes with gift bags and goodies for attendees.
This is unstructured time for our team to get to know the youth one-on-one, spot students who might be interested in becoming the next Indigenous chef, and reflect together on the day’s learning over a meal.
We consider sharing this meal with your community an honor, not just a logistics item on the schedule.
Harold is our Indigenous-speaking, walking, talking humanoid, built for human connection. He uses cloud-based AI to hold live conversations, make eye contact, track people in a room, and mirror human expressions.
Harold appears at the close of the Historical Timeline segment, reaching out to “transfer” an Elder’s knowledge to an expecting mother on screen — physically connecting our history to the Wombs of Wisdom program.
Students can walk up, ask Harold questions about science, culture, or the future, and get an immediate, expressive response — the kind of moment that makes technology feel personal rather than abstract.
Harold runs on Tritium, a beginner-friendly programming platform that lets students write simple behaviors, movements, and speech scripts and see their code come to life on the robot in real time.
The goal of this module is to introduce and inspire youth toward careers in robotics, innovation, and technology.
Delivered by our partners at Aboriginal Training Services (ATS), this module opens with a Drone Zone Air Show designed to excite and inspire the next generation of Indigenous aviation pilots.
Future pilots progress through hands-on workshops — starting with simple tasks like delivering groceries to Elders in the community, and building toward relaying time-sensitive information between communities. The goal is for youth to eventually lead this communication and trade network themselves, continuing a tradition of trade between Nations that predates government assistance programs.
ATS was recognized with the Indigenous Innovation Award at the Aerial Evolution Association of Canada’s 2024 conference for its Indigenous-led aerospace training. Their curriculum is co-designed with Nations and covers mission planning, airspace literacy, safety-systems thinking (checklists, crew roles, auditable data), and career pathways into mapping, inspection, and public-safety roles.
Recommend linking to Aboriginal Training Services’ own site for full program and certification details rather than duplicating their curriculum here.
This program mentors youth into film, television, and performing arts through hands-on shadowing — no prior experience or industry connections required.
Mentors include former WCW Executive Producer Craig Leathers (camera work through editing) and Indigenous actors Gene BraveRock and Owen CrowShoe, who offer first-hand guidance on navigating the industry.
- Set orientation — filmmaking process, on-set etiquette, and communication between departments
- WHMIS — safely handling workplace hazardous materials on a film set
- Locations — the role of the locations department and safety obligations to cast, crew, and the public
- Intro to paper — reading a call sheet, sides, and other standard production documents
- Safety awareness & propane safety — protective equipment, emergency procedures, and safe handling of on-set propane
- Working as an extra — how to work effectively as a background performer and part of a production team
Students who want to go further can be connected with resources on headshots, acting résumés, demo reels, and auditions — recommend keeping that material as an optional downloadable guide rather than page copy, since it’s general industry advice rather than FNMI-specific content.
We’ve partnered with well-known Indigenous artists — including Drezus and DJ Young Dene — to inspire youth through music and artistic performance.
Youth sit in circle with these artists to hear their stories and learn directly from their experience, alongside a workshop introducing well-established music-education approaches (including Orff Schulwerk and Kodály-based methods) adapted for group learning.
The aim is to give students both a role model and a practical foundation in performance they can keep building on.
An online platform where communities document incidents — from bullying and racism to more serious harms — along with the root-cause analysis and preventative steps taken afterward.
It also captures the positive side: outreach programs, crisis lines, and moments where students intervened to help someone else, so those actions can be recognized and repeated elsewhere.
The philosophy: best practices shouldn’t only come from the top. The people on the front lines — students, families, community workers — often know what actually works, and this network is built to surface and share that knowledge across Nations instead of leaving every community to solve the same problems alone.
A one-day workshop teaching youth and community members how to search for, screen, apply for, and win federal, provincial, municipal, and private grant funding — a skill we believe every Indigenous person should have access to.
Delivered with our partners at Altruvest Indigenous BoardMatch, who connect trained community members with Indigenous boards and non-profits seeking their skills, cultural knowledge, and lived experience.
Altruvest has placed over 5,000 volunteers on more than 1,000 boards since shifting its focus to governance training in 1999, and is now expanding culturally grounded board training to Indigenous communities across Canada and the U.S.
This program is built on one principle: we don’t wait for youth to come to us. We go to them, listen first, and shape the program around what they actually need.
Entrance to the full-day event is one non-perishable food item or piece of clothing per person, donated back to families in need in the community at the close of the event.
This module is championed by Gilbert Crowchild, our Indigenous Affairs consultant, who spent 27 years on Chief and Council and started a food bank on his own Nation over 30 years ago that still serves the community today.
This is our commitment to advancing self-sufficiency and leaving a sustainable, positive impact on every community, settlement, and territory we visit.
Delivered with the UWN (Ultimate Wrestling Nation) First Nations Wrestling Federation, this live event crowns the N.O.W. (Nation of Warriors) Heavyweight Champion of the World.
Barry, the central figure from the Live Stage Performance, returns to confront his bully and win a decisive victory — an alternate, triumphant ending to his story. The undercard pits the abusers and bullies from the stage performance against our performers and role models.
At the close of the event, the N.O.W. Championship Belt is placed in your school’s trophy cabinet as a daily reminder for students to stand up for themselves and others — until we return to defend the title the following year, maintaining an ongoing connection with your students.
Delivered at Harmony Creek Ranch, weaving almost 50 years of the ranch’s community work with Indigenous teachings from the Medicine Wheel and the view of horses as spirit helpers.
Led by Chris CrowShoe (known from Into the West and Tales from the Rez), the day teaches youth to give energy rather than take it, and to lead with a mindful, heart-centred presence while connecting with nature.
- Morning Circle — smudging, grounding, and setting intentions
- Horse Kinship Activities — unmounted and mounted relationship-building with the horses
- Creation Connections — nature walks and craft focused on energy and environment
- Closing Circle — reflecting on the day’s learning and offerings in the evening
Led by Youth Consultant Brooke Meadows (Foundry Chilliwack, and youth-policy work with Chilliwack School District 33), this initiative combines modern greenhouse methods with traditional land-based knowledge to reduce communities’ reliance on outside grocery supply chains.
Training covers seed saving, crop production and harvesting, and hands-on operation of a community greenhouse — including seasonal-extension techniques for growing past standard outdoor limits, irrigation, and climate control.
Our approach is spray-free and organic: no artificial pesticides, synthetic fertilizers, or GMOs. We feed the soil naturally and manage pests through companion planting and crop rotation instead.
This work is grounded in a view of humans, animals, plants, and land as equal kin — with a responsibility to never take from the land without an offering in return.
As we travel from community to community, we document the products and services offered by the members, communities, and Nations we visit — from Buffalo goods to beadwork.
Those products and services are then shared with other communities on our Community Connections & Commerce landing page, reviving the trade networks that sustained our people for thousands of years, independent of government assistance.