Grant Program: Community Grants 2025
Funder: Peter and Betty Haworth Fund
About:
The Sníchím Foundation’s (SF) mission is to build community and belonging by supporting Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim (Squamish language) and cultural revitalization. Our work focuses on revitalizing the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh sníchim through immersion-based and land-based learning for Sḵwx̱wú7mesh members with the goal of strengthening our rich Squamish heritage and supporting the cultural aspirations of our people. We have been working with Sḵwx̱wú7mesh community members on the North Shore, and in West Vancouver, since 2015, delivering language learning programs, language certificate programs (in conjunction with Simon Fraser University), culturally-meaningful employment opportunities and cultural engagement services to members of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation). Our activities reflect our unwavering commitment to uplifting our community’s wellbeing and prosperity through language and culture revitalization, in service of the Sḵwx̱wú7mesh People’s resurgence.
Project Outcomes:
To continue offering land-based activities grounded in cultural revitalization, we led intergenerational outings to harvest salmon berries and cedar roots and bark in West Vancouver. Our language cohort also participated in a Salmon Ceremony, where an SF staff member spoke and our learners shared the sníchim with the wider community.
Our programs are highly-sought after within our community; there are few opportunities for our community members to learn our ancestral language while practicing and learning traditional skills.
Our project generated meaningful community benefits by strengthening intergenerational connection, supporting youth engagement, and promoting holistic health and wellness through land-based cultural practice. By bringing Elders, adults, and children together on the land, the workshops and ceremony created opportunities for young people to learn language, cultural values, and traditional skills in relationship with family and community.
During our harvesting workshops, several young children arrived with their parents, grandparents, and aunties, moving together on the land as knowledge-carriers shared teachings about harvesting and preparing traditional foods and plants in our language. Seeing children help with harvesting and speaking our language is very significant for our community, particularly for Elders who are sharing language knowledge intergenerationally. For generations, Sḵwx̱wú7mesh children were denied these experiences under colonial policies that punished cultural learning. Witnessing children today speaking sníchim and learning traditional foodways alongside their relatives is a powerful indicator of healing and resilience. These moments of shared intergenerational learning reflect hope for the future and a reminder that culture, language, and community continue to grow when given resources to thrive.
