Colleen Hele-Cardinal is co-founder and Executive Director of the Sixties Scoop Network (SSN). She is nehiyaw iskwew from Saddle Lake First Nation, AB but adopted and raised in Sault Ste Marie ON.  She has worked diligently to raise the issue of the 60s scoop as well as build community, support for 60s scoop survivors and bring international attention to the displacement and loss of identity 60s scoop survivors have experienced. She has successfully organized four national gatherings for 60’s scoop survivors. She is the author of Ohpikiihaakan-ohpihmeh (Raised somewhere else): A 60s Scoop Adoptee’s Story of Coming Home. Colleen was was awarded the Ontario Premiers Award in November 2018 for Outstanding Community work in her field and the 2019 CBC Trail Blazer award.  

Colleen Cardinal will be at the Gordon Oakes Centre, to host a workshop on the Sixties Scoop and digital mapping and will talk about her GIS mapping project “In our Own Words: Mapping the Sixties Scoop Diaspora”.