Charlene Bearhead is an Alberta-based educator, Indigenous education advocate and author who has served Survivors, intergenerational Survivors, and Indigenous Peoples more broadly for over 35 years.
Bearhead has focused throughout her career on education as a tool for reconciliation, having worked to establish the National Indigenous Education and Reconciliation Network Gathering that has taken place in May since 2017.
She is currently the founder and principal of Roots of Resilience Charter School – the only Indigenous-focused public charter school in the country after serving six years as the Vice-President of Learning and Reconciliation at the Royal Canadian Geographical Society. Bearhead has extensive experience in education and reconciliation at the regional, national and international level, including coordinating Alexis Nakota Sioux First Nation’s first Residential School Survivor program in the late 1990’s and guiding the children’s and youth tracks of Healing Our Spirit Worldwide in Edmonton, Alberta, and New Mexico and Hawai’i, USA.
Previously, Bearhead served on the Indigenous Education Advisory Circles for the National Film Board of Canada and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights’ Indigenous Education working group. She was the education coordinator for the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls and the first education lead for both the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation at the University of Manitoba and the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at UBC.
"This work matters most to me because the work we do within the National Council for Reconciliation will influence the Canada we leave behind for our children, grandchildren, and all future generations. My hope is that we set everyday Canadians of all ages, all cultures and from all walks of life on a path of authentic reconciliation, respectful relationships towards a just and equitable society. "
Charlene Bearhead