Pawa Haiyupis

Relations Coordinator

Pawa (Pawatsqʷačiił) is an Ahousaht citizen with strong family ties to Tla-o-qui-aht nation and Hahoulthee (territory) as well as French/Scottish ancestry, and she feels the most belonging and healing when she is in her ancestral places. Pawa is a graduate student in Indigenous Nationhood at the University of Victoria and she holds an undergraduate degree in First Nations Studies from Vancouver Island University. Pawa has 25 years of facilitating transformational gatherings in First Nations communities across Canada and she finds it gratifying to provide meaningful engagement in decolonial systems change initiatives. Her career's role is intervening with ongoing colonial damage to Indigenous people and Nature by encouraging more connections to our traditional waterways, lands, languages, songs, and ceremonies. She hosts safe enough spaces to explore complex questions of Indigenous sovereignty and climate justice within Indigenous communities and colonial systems. Her approach is to “start from a place of wellness.”