Kw’umut Lelum Child and Family Services is an Indigenous-led institution made up of the nine Xwulmuxw Mustimuxw Nations on Vancouver Island. Since 1996, they have been doing important culturally grounded work supporting Indigenous youth, focused on those who are or have been in care.
The goal of this partnership is to support Kw’umut Lelum Child and Family Services in establishing a First Nations owned and governed foundation to ensure First Nations control of the mission, vision, values, strategy, and planning for investing in youth through community generated ideas. It will enable the work of Kw’umut Lelum Child and Family Services to deepen and expand to better support Indigenous youth and their futures and accelerate self-determination. Learning will be shared with other Indigenous communities interested in the community foundation model.
This partnership includes:
• Establishing the Kw’umut Lelum Foundation.
• Technical support related to establishing a foundation, including legal support, forming bylaws and governance structures, administrative processes, and recruiting and training qualified staff. Investment in youth voices and community advocacy and education will be key.
• A financial literacy program to be created after the Foundation’s start up that includes delivery of age-specific educational materials.
• Establishing a dedicated Foundation scholarship/bursary fund to leverage, incentivize, and seek matching resources from communities and the private sector.
• Network and opportunity development through relationship building with provincial and federal governments, school districts, post-secondary institutions, regional youth support organizations, and other Indigenous philanthropic organizations.
